Novell and Samba

Novell and Samba

Posted Jul 18, 2009 17:01 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: The FSF warns (again) against Mono by epa
Parent article: The FSF warns (again) against Mono

I think you have to look at the bigger picture to know why distros are more comfortable with Samba (even if there is always some danger). The Samba team has testified before the European Commission in an antitrust trial against Microsoft. Samba is used to interoperate with Windows on the network. That should make Microsoft think before using their patents against anyone distributing it.

However a lawsuit against people distributing Mono would probably be seen as Microsoft limiting distribution of their development platform. Mono is used to run .NET software on other platforms, and antitrust authorities do not care so much about that. If there was the same awareness about development platforms as there is for interoperability, Mono would probably be in the clear.

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