3 ms·

I guess that's useful for people who are already bought in to the .NET world, but isn't LINQ encumbered by patents that pose a risk to anyone building on top of

by pekk 12y ago

I guess that's useful for people who are already bought in to the .NET world, but isn't LINQ encumbered by patents that pose a risk to anyone building on top of it?

uniformlyrandom 12y ago
The part that has been opensourced is under MIT license. According to the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License), > Whether or not a court might imply a patent grant under the MIT license therefore remains an open question. This probably means MSFT is unlikely to enforce those patents.
filmor 12y ago
Microsoft is explicit about not doing that: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT However, as far as I understand it, the patent grant only holds for .NET runtimes you write yourself or programs to be run in a .NET runtime.
- Rapzid 12y ago
  Which, TBH, is all anyone should really care about. We can use dotnet for free if we like and it's getting officially open-sourced and supported across platforms; this is great. -Not directing anything at you specifically
- fotcorn 12y ago
  Interesting that the patent grant from Microsoft is much more sane than that from Facebook: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT : If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in any claim in a lawsuit alleging direct or contributory patent infringement by any Covered Code, or inducement of patent infringement by any Covered Code, then your rights under this promise will automatically terminate. vs https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS : The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or other action) alleging (a) direct, indirect, or contributory infringement or inducement to infringe any patent: (i) by Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, (ii) by any party if such claim arises in whole or in part from any software, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, or (iii) by any party relating to the Software; or (b) that any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or unenforceable.
useerup 12y ago
No. That was/is just FSF FUD. You have always been able to build anything on top of it without concerns about patents from the implementation. This claim was so hilarious that it is incomprehensible that anyone ever believed it. You have also been able to reimplement .NET CLR and core libraries without fear of patent litigation (from Microsoft). They have placed the CLR and core libraries under the legal estoppel of the community promise since 2007 (IIRC), in addition to publicly granting patent license to anyone creating an implementation of NET CLR and core libraries from the specifications. This latter was part of the process under which C#, .NET CLR and core libraries was standardized under ISO. A precondition for the standardization was that any necessary patents (for implementation) be offered on RAND terms (reasonable and non-discriminatory). Microsoft has always offered the patent grants free. The community promise was created in response to FUD from (among others) FSF that Microsoft would just sue anyway (despite patent grants), and with their vast army of lawyers and deep coffers they could bury in court. The community promise creates legal estoppel, whereby a case by Microsoft would be dismissed if you acted "in good faith" by relying on the promise. Open sourcing Parallel LINQ has no bearing on the patent status of anything building on top of it. If you believe the FSF FUD, you will be ensnared in .NET technology and Microsoft will sue you out of existence if you ever become successful. If you do not believe the FUD, you can continue to take advantage of LINQ, Parallel LINQ, .NET, C#, F# etc.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  When I read the community promise, it seemed to still allow Microsoft to go after competitors and use patents "defensively". So it's not impossible that you end up fighting MS on an unrelated matter, then they could use their promised patents against you. Probably incredibly unlikely, but a strict interpretation might view it as a risk. Or did I misunderstand?
- makomk 12y ago
  No, it's not just FUD, and it doesn't just apply to LINQ either. Microsoft only promised not to sue over certain kinds of patent infringement in core libraries; that promise didn't extend to code you wrote on top of those libraries, which is unsurprising. Unfortunately they've patented a bunch of common ways of using .NET functionality, including many of the things you might use LINQ for and one of the most common idioms for using delegagtes and events. (Both of the commonly used GUI libraries - Windows.Forms and Gtk# - infringe the latter patent. So if you're running a GUI-based .NET app on anything but Windows then Microsoft can sue you if they ever decide it's to their advantage to do so.)

by pekk 12y ago

I guess that's useful for people who are already bought in to the .NET world, but isn't LINQ encumbered by patents that pose a risk to anyone building on top of it?

uniformlyrandom 12y ago

The part that has been opensourced is under MIT license. According to the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License), > Whether or not a court might imply a patent grant under the MIT license therefore remains an open question. This probably means MSFT is unlikely to enforce those patents.

filmor 12y ago

Microsoft is explicit about not doing that: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT However, as far as I understand it, the patent grant only holds for .NET runtimes you write yourself or programs to be run in a .NET runtime.

Rapzid 12y ago
Which, TBH, is all anyone should really care about. We can use dotnet for free if we like and it's getting officially open-sourced and supported across platforms; this is great. -Not directing anything at you specifically
fotcorn 12y ago
Interesting that the patent grant from Microsoft is much more sane than that from Facebook: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT : If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in any claim in a lawsuit alleging direct or contributory patent infringement by any Covered Code, or inducement of patent infringement by any Covered Code, then your rights under this promise will automatically terminate. vs https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS : The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, for anyone that makes any claim (including by filing any lawsuit, assertion or other action) alleging (a) direct, indirect, or contributory infringement or inducement to infringe any patent: (i) by Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, (ii) by any party if such claim arises in whole or in part from any software, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, whether or not such claim is related to the Software, or (iii) by any party relating to the Software; or (b) that any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or unenforceable.

useerup 12y ago

No. That was/is just FSF FUD. You have always been able to build anything on top of it without concerns about patents from the implementation. This claim was so hilarious that it is incomprehensible that anyone ever believed it. You have also been able to reimplement .NET CLR and core libraries without fear of patent litigation (from Microsoft). They have placed the CLR and core libraries under the legal estoppel of the community promise since 2007 (IIRC), in addition to publicly granting patent license to anyone creating an implementation of NET CLR and core libraries from the specifications. This latter was part of the process under which C#, .NET CLR and core libraries was standardized under ISO. A precondition for the standardization was that any necessary patents (for implementation) be offered on RAND terms (reasonable and non-discriminatory). Microsoft has always offered the patent grants free. The community promise was created in response to FUD from (among others) FSF that Microsoft would just sue anyway (despite patent grants), and with their vast army of lawyers and deep coffers they could bury in court. The community promise creates legal estoppel, whereby a case by Microsoft would be dismissed if you acted "in good faith" by relying on the promise. Open sourcing Parallel LINQ has no bearing on the patent status of anything building on top of it. If you believe the FSF FUD, you will be ensnared in .NET technology and Microsoft will sue you out of existence if you ever become successful. If you do not believe the FUD, you can continue to take advantage of LINQ, Parallel LINQ, .NET, C#, F# etc.

MichaelGG 12y ago
When I read the community promise, it seemed to still allow Microsoft to go after competitors and use patents "defensively". So it's not impossible that you end up fighting MS on an unrelated matter, then they could use their promised patents against you. Probably incredibly unlikely, but a strict interpretation might view it as a risk. Or did I misunderstand?
makomk 12y ago
No, it's not just FUD, and it doesn't just apply to LINQ either. Microsoft only promised not to sue over certain kinds of patent infringement in core libraries; that promise didn't extend to code you wrote on top of those libraries, which is unsurprising. Unfortunately they've patented a bunch of common ways of using .NET functionality, including many of the things you might use LINQ for and one of the most common idioms for using delegagtes and events. (Both of the commonly used GUI libraries - Windows.Forms and Gtk# - infringe the latter patent. So if you're running a GUI-based .NET app on anything but Windows then Microsoft can sue you if they ever decide it's to their advantage to do so.)