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A comment on Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#. Parent comment

Re:Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# by profquail on Saturday June 27, 2009 @06:20PM (#677255)
That was my reaction. I would think that by publishing the ECMA standard (and there have even been revisions to the original standard), they have pretty much given up any patents on C#/.NET. Besides, if Microsoft was going to use their patents against open source projects, what would stop them from going after closed-source software as well?

Also, is there anything stopping anyone from writing an open source JIT that compiles C#/VB.NET/F# to Java bytecode? Or, converting .NET bytecode to/from Java bytecode? Then, you wouldn't be locked into a single system.

I'm actually working on a new open source project right now that is written in C# and is going to be released under either the BSD or MIT license (I haven't decided yet). So I probably couldn't disagree more with this article. I think that if more open source were written in C# or Java, it would be much easier to port Linux (BSD, etc.) to other platforms, since most/all of the software that people will want to use doesn't even need to be rewritten for that platform.

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Re:Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# by prodigal_erik on Saturday June 27, 2009 @07:03PM (#677292)
Publication does not affect your rights under patent law. In fact the patent itself is formally considered as publication (though in comparision to most RFCs, I find the writing style nearly incomprehensible).
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Re:Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# by ubernostrum on Saturday June 27, 2009 @08:30PM (#677365)
"Publication does not affect your rights under patent law."

True, but letting Mono flourish for as long as it has without taking legal action against it opens up a can of worms that can screw with future action against it. Patent law recognizes the idea that implicitly letting someone infringe and not doing anything about it until it's most profitable for you/most damaging to them isn't the way the game's supposed to be played.

Add to that the fact that patent suits are the global thermonuclear war of the technology industry (the only way to win is not to play), and I'll be surprised if anything serious ever happens.

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Re:Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# by prodigal_erik on Sunday June 28, 2009 @02:24PM (#677915)
That's right, the longer they know Mono exists and let it slide, the more they risk losing an infringement suit over laches. But I don't think the existence of the ECMA standard matters.
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