4 ms·

As I told a buddy earlier, the piece is below RMS' usual standard: "This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it" - poisoning the well rather than a

As I told a buddy earlier, the piece is below RMS' usual standard: "This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it" - poisoning the well rather than arguing the case properly...

rbanffy 17y ago
Wouldn't it be nice if we could be absolutely sure Microsoft would not be able to sue users or companies using free software for patent violations? I cannot be sure they won't sue people for anything they have patented that's used in Mono.
- jauco 17y ago
  They don't ATM claim patents on mono. They do claim patents on the linux kernel.
  - teamonkey 17y ago
    Thank goodness we have GNU Hurd!
  - swaroop 17y ago
    Can you point to these actual claims? As far as I've understood, they were just stances and FUD. They haven't made any specific claims. That's as vague as it can get.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      Did you miss them suing Tom Tom for VFAT? Some info on the latest patent workaround suggested for the kernel: http://lwn.net/Articles/338941/ http://lwn.net/Articles/338941/ They claim to have another 250 such patents.
- bad_user 17y ago
  > I cannot be sure they won't sue people for anything they have patented that's used in Mono. With the current state of patents, you really can't be sure of anything. Even SUN got sued by Kodak for Java. I have a problem with the arguments for "free software" in general. People say that RMS is usually right, but being anti-Mono because you're pro-freedom, is like saying you're anti-abortions because you're pro-life. The state of affairs is never black and white like that.
evdawg 17y ago
This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.) I don't get it. Why is the GNU Project developing their own C# implementation but is seemingly anti-Mono? Hypocritical much? They want to discourage the use of C#... so they're developing their own C# suite? Doesn't make sense to me. Question to those who may know: If C# is an ECMA standard, how can Microsoft shut down C# implementations legally? Aren't ECMA standards free for all to use?
- profquail 17y ago
  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.
  - prodigal_erik 17y ago
    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).
    - ubernostrum 17y ago
      "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.
cschwarm 17y ago
I personally find the 'Non sequitur' more obvious: "If we lose the use of C#, we will lose them [applications written in C#] too." It's obviously possible to port C# applications to other programming languages. One example is Tomboy, which was ported to C++ (the port is called gNote). Also, a GNOME developer once tried to port a C# application to Java: His conclusion was, IIRC, that it's rather easy since both languages are very similar. This shows that even if the community looses all free C# implementations, it would not loose all the C# applications. Anyway, what I find more interesting: You seem to say that Stallman usually argues his case properly. I find this hard to believe. Could you show me any important argument made by him that does not rest on a logical fallacy? I'd be deeply grateful.

As I told a buddy earlier, the piece is below RMS' usual standard: "This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it" - poisoning the well rather than arguing the case properly...

rbanffy 17y ago

Wouldn't it be nice if we could be absolutely sure Microsoft would not be able to sue users or companies using free software for patent violations? I cannot be sure they won't sue people for anything they have patented that's used in Mono.

jauco 17y ago
They don't ATM claim patents on mono. They do claim patents on the linux kernel.
- teamonkey 17y ago
  Thank goodness we have GNU Hurd!
- swaroop 17y ago
  Can you point to these actual claims? As far as I've understood, they were just stances and FUD. They haven't made any specific claims. That's as vague as it can get.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Did you miss them suing Tom Tom for VFAT? Some info on the latest patent workaround suggested for the kernel: http://lwn.net/Articles/338941/ http://lwn.net/Articles/338941/ They claim to have another 250 such patents.
bad_user 17y ago
> I cannot be sure they won't sue people for anything they have patented that's used in Mono. With the current state of patents, you really can't be sure of anything. Even SUN got sued by Kodak for Java. I have a problem with the arguments for "free software" in general. People say that RMS is usually right, but being anti-Mono because you're pro-freedom, is like saying you're anti-abortions because you're pro-life. The state of affairs is never black and white like that.

evdawg 17y ago

This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.) I don't get it. Why is the GNU Project developing their own C# implementation but is seemingly anti-Mono? Hypocritical much? They want to discourage the use of C#... so they're developing their own C# suite? Doesn't make sense to me. Question to those who may know: If C# is an ECMA standard, how can Microsoft shut down C# implementations legally? Aren't ECMA standards free for all to use?

profquail 17y ago
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.
- prodigal_erik 17y ago
  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).
  - ubernostrum 17y ago
    "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.

cschwarm 17y ago

I personally find the 'Non sequitur' more obvious: "If we lose the use of C#, we will lose them [applications written in C#] too." It's obviously possible to port C# applications to other programming languages. One example is Tomboy, which was ported to C++ (the port is called gNote). Also, a GNOME developer once tried to port a C# application to Java: His conclusion was, IIRC, that it's rather easy since both languages are very similar. This shows that even if the community looses all free C# implementations, it would not loose all the C# applications. Anyway, what I find more interesting: You seem to say that Stallman usually argues his case properly. I find this hard to believe. Could you show me any important argument made by him that does not rest on a logical fallacy? I'd be deeply grateful.