The FSF warns (again) against Mono

The FSF warns (again) against Mono

Posted Jul 17, 2009 16:44 UTC (Fri) by setecastronomy (guest, #59621)
In reply to: The FSF warns (again) against Mono by epa
Parent article: The FSF warns (again) against Mono

"The trouble is, all these 'Microsoft patent' arguments apply equally well to Samba, and distros are happy to ship that..."

This is at least as far as I know not entirely correct. While negoiating the PFIF, the Samba project went out of their way to ensure that result would cover their asse(t)s while keeping it compatible with word and spirit of the GPL :

After paying Microsoft a one-time sum of 10,000 Euros, the PFIF will make available to the Samba Team under non-disclosure terms the documentation needed for implementation of all of the workgroup server protocols covered by the EU decision.

"Although the documentation itself will be held in confidence by the PFIF and Samba Team engineers, the agreement allows the publication of the source code of the implementation of these protocols without any further restrictions. This is fully compatible with versions two and three of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Samba is published under the GNU GPL which is the most widely used of all Free Software licenses. In addition it allows discussion of the protocol information amongst implementers which will aid technical cooperation between engineers.

Under the agreement, Microsoft is required to make available and keep current a list of patent numbers it believes are related to the Microsoft implementation of the workgroup server protocols, without granting an implicit patent license to any Free Software implementation.

(emphasis mine).

The second part is what (imho) sets the PFIF agreement apart from the community promise. C.f.
http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/

(This is besides the fact that getting rid of a file server implementation should be easier than getting rid of a whole development framework + the programs that rely on it).

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