[Mono-list] Ask Microsoft: Mono support

[George Birbilis]

> Writing test programs and observing behavior is a form of reverse
> engineering.  Period.  Fortunately reverse engineering is perfectly
> legal, legally protected, and necessary for competition.

well, we can agree on somewhat disagreeing on what reverse engineering is

indeed though, if your aim is to keep close compatibility with .NET runtime, 
even if that contradicts its public specs (that is copy MS bugs too), you'd 
need to do some reverse engineering

however, regarding the legality of reverse engineering, keep in mind most 
software licenses don't allow it, so you can't even install such software if 
you plan on reverse engineering it, else you break its owners rights (cause 
they license it to you [even for free] under certain end-user-license, not 
without any restrictions on its use)

when some s/w becomes ubiquitous though (aka Windows), it starts being 
treated as common infrustructure and there are other laws coming in play, 
anti-monopoly ones etc., thus you get the right to ask for more published 
info on how that s/w behaves

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George Birbilis (birbilis@kagi.com)
http://www.kagi.com/birbilis
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