[Mono-list] something general about software patents

[Daniel Stodden]

On Wed, 2002-03-13 at 21:35, Guenther Roith wrote:
>  i think there are two reasons why the ms can't use their patents
> 
> - most countrys (excepts the usa) don't accept software patents
> - they can't do anything against mono, as it is open source and they could
> only force ximian in the usa (but not in europe) to stop the development, as
> they can't forbid the use of mono to the end user, can they?

personally, i'd find a precise listing of patents in question much more
interesting.

ballmer at cebit, unfortunately in german:

Auf die Öffnung des .NET-Framework angesprochen, kündigte Ballmer an,
dass es sicherlich eine Common-Language-Runtime-Implementation für Unix
geben werde, schränkte diese Entwicklung jedoch als Subset ein, der "nur
für den akademischen Einsatz gedacht sei". Überlegungen zur
Unterstützung freier .NET-Implementationen wie Mono erteilte Ballmer
eine Absage: "Wir haben so viele Millionen in .NET gesteckt, wir haben
so viele Patente auf .NET, die wir pflegen wollen."

	http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-12.03.02-000/ 

minimum translation:
question: any support for mono by microsoft in sight?
ballmer: well, we put so may millions in .net, we've got so many patents
to maintain...

i mean: the question is not whether microsoft will sue the hell out of
ximian as soon as mono gets usable. the question is rather is it going
happen this week or somewhere after 1.0.
but eventually it will happen. the cake of sharing millions of future
lines of code between windows and linux by sharing the high-level
interfaces is just too big for microsoft to let anyone to get through
with that. and they must be aware that as soon as they clean up windows,
they are loosing the advantage of effectively locking developers into
the mess win32 has been.
if .net is going to be the success they expect, it's only an army of
lawyers which will save them. in the long run, i don't think they could
compete technically.

did anyone ever take the time to investigate what exactly they filed?

class libraries appear safe to me. some stuff is tricky but not exactly
rocket science.

garbage collection? as far as i know the file has been closed as either
solved or unsolvable years ago.

jitting details?


regards,
daniel


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