[Mono-list] bad news from microsoft

[Eric Kidd]

On Tue, 2002-03-12 at 16:21, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> Linus once said:
> 
>     "The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong
>     One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it."
> 
> Not speaking for Ximian, the Mono project, or myself ;-)
> Miguel.

Besides laughing in the face of danger, there are a few other useful
steps which might be taken with regard to patent-pflegening. ;-)

On another mailing list, a Microsoft .NET technology evangelist told a
group of compiler authors to contact ECMA if they had questions about
patents on the CLR.  Has Ximian, or any other member of the Mono
project, spoken to ECMA about patent licensing issues?

It's entirely possible that there are a few RAND patents on important
pieces of technology.  As an IP lawyer pointed out, the level of novelty
legally required to get a patent is breathtakingly low--even very
trivial variations of prior art may be "legitimately" patented.

Cheers,
Eric