[Mono-list] any comments out there about this article

[Sebastien Lambla]

About the license problem,

it seems quite obvious that GPL propagation is not feasible for mono, as it
would contaminate software being run on top of it. We have to find a non
propagating open source license, which would be by the way ok with
Microsoft.

On the patent side, one VERY easy solution would be to create a non profit
organization handling the development of the mono project, where Ximian
becomes one of the contributors, in France or another country where software
patents are not recognized nor legal. And badaboom, you've got an open
source library available for anyone, and not covered by any patent.

Sebastien Lambla

-----Original Message-----
From: mono-list-admin@ximian.com [mailto:mono-list-admin@ximian.com]On
Behalf Of Nathan Torkington
Sent: mercredi 11 juillet 2001 12:20
To: Brian Mastenbrook
Cc: mono-list@ximian.com
Subject: Re: [Mono-list] any comments out there about this article


Brian Mastenbrook writes:
> I'm not sure Microsoft would deliberately make specification-related
> "IP" (as they call it) incompatible license-wise with the GNU
> licenses. Remember, Microsoft has three arms: Development, PR, and
> Legal, and them making the .NET ECMA-submitted stuff
> non-GPL-compatible would simply be an unmitigated PR disaster.

I'm not sure they would, either.  But it's a possibility.  And right
now Microsoft is taking the hard line against the GPL and it hasn't
been a public relations disaster, not even a mitigated one :-) I'm
pretty sure they'd spin it as "we can't run the risk of our IP being
contaminated by the GPL, and isn't the shared source license
reasonable enough?"

This is predicated upon their being patents on key mono-related
technologies.  15 minutes in the patent database didn't find me any,
but it may just be because I couldn't think of appropriate keywords to
search for.  I think I remember Dick Hardt, Activestate CEO, saying
that Microsoft does have patents around parts of .NET, but it'd be
nice to have confirmation and to know precisely which patents and
which parts.

Nat


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