[Mono-list] Mono and Patents....

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> My understanding is that any implementation of the ECMA specifications 
> for the CLI, etc, is known to be covered by patents held by Microsoft. 
> Such a submision is allowable under th eEMCA rules provided that the 
> patents are licensable under "Reasonable and Non-discriminatory" (RAND). 
> My conceen is that RAND does not imply compatibility iwth the GPL or any 
> other open source license, and I am trying to find out ifth eMono 
> project is specifically licensed for the patents covering the ECMA 
> specification, of simply relying on public statments regarding them.

You are mixing GPL (a copyright license) and patents *again*.  They
have nothing to do with each other.  I thought you had just said you
did understand the difference.

The C# and CLI patents are available under RAND and Royalty Free terms
as pointed out in the FAQ (the link to Jim's post) which you said you
read a few times (it seems and you still managed to not find this).

I have spoked to Jim, I have spoken to the ECMA folks.  If you do not
believe any of this, pick up the phone and call Microsoft's IP staff to
discuss RAND and Royalty Free terms.

Make sure you talk to a lawyer before so you do not confuse *again*
copyright and patents.

Miguel.