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Another example: Simon Peyton-Jones and Simon Marlow, which make up a huge chunk of power behind Haskell and specifically GHC, are Microsoft researchers. (Altho
by Xichekolas 17y ago
Another example: Simon Peyton-Jones and Simon Marlow, which make up a huge chunk of power behind Haskell and specifically GHC, are Microsoft researchers. (Although Haskell and GHC are not Microsoft projects, they get paid by Microsoft to work on them.)
- rbanffy 17y agoIn return, Microsoft gets a ton of concurrency-related IP that could be used to stifle the market for non-Microsoft implementations in the future. This makes me uncomfortable. You just don't trust your money to an apparently unarmed bank-robber.
- sketerpot 17y agoThe Simons publish their work freely, and go to a lot of effort writing their papers well so that their work spreads beyond Microsoft. And as far as I know, their code is all open source.
- rbanffy 17y agoAny idea if there are patents pending on any of this IP? I would see that if the patent was applied for before the paper is published, the paper would not be considered prior art and would not invalidate the claims. As for licensing, Microsoft owns the said IP and can re-license it on a whim. Not all of Microsoft is evil, but they, as a company, cannot be trusted to behave in a civilized manner.
- neilc 17y agoI don't think there's really a big ethical difference between MS, and other big companies like IBM and HP. Each company does a lot of research that benefits the community at large; they also need to recoup that investment via patents, technology transfer and the like. Trusting IBM, for instance, any more or any less than Microsoft is a little naive.
- rbanffy 17y agoI must disagree. Even if IBM has a chequered past, Microsoft has a very nasty recent history of anti-competitive and plain unethical behaviour under the current administration. I agree IBM cannot be trusted, but claiming someone should trust Microsoft because IBM is no better (a disputable allegation in itself) is a logical failure.
- Xichekolas 17y agoI am not a patent lawyer, but is there any evidence that Microsoft is even trying to protect this particular IP? AFAIK, the Simons publish research papers freely, and GHC is licensed under what amounts to a BSD3 license (by the University of Glasgow... not Microsoft).