Stop the insanity and drop Mono now [LWN.net]

Stop the insanity and drop Mono now

Posted Oct 22, 2004 1:43 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
In reply to: Stop the insanity and drop Mono now by LinuxLobbyist
Parent article: A couple of applications from your future desktop

OK, I'm willing to mark your words. If Microsoft hasn't managed to crush Mono in 5 years, then will you admit you were wrong? And, if they do, I'll admit I was wrong. Personally, I don't think they'll even try; talk about a low percentage effort. Note that quibbling over the .NET emulation libraries is very possible, but that doesn't matter because Gnome software doesn't use them.

Without a time limit, your prediction has about as much meaning as "the end of the world is coming!" i.e., not much.

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Stop the insanity and drop Mono now

Posted Oct 22, 2004 4:00 UTC (Fri) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541) [Link]

Five years is reasonable. And, yes, of course I'll admit I'm wrong if it doesn't happen. But with a caveat: only if the policies of the USPTO do not change for the better (i.e.: disallow or severely limit the award of software patents). If the policies change for the better, my assertion becomes moot.

I think many people forget how easy it is for an extremely wealthy company with a near inexhaustible supply of money can game the patent system as well as standards bodies. And it's only getting worse. Witness what happened with the IETF MARID Working Group for but one example. I was (am, actually, but the traffic is near nil, now) subscribed to that list as well as spf-discuss before that and warned of getting too close to Microsoft very early on. And look what happened.

I don't know much about ECMA, but having parts of .NET in the hands of a standards body doesn't give me much comfort, given what I've seen from some standards bodies.

And Microsoft doesn't have to be *right* if they make any kind of claim against Mono in order to hold it in limbo in court for years and drain the financial resources of those who back it and/or distribute it. I personally know people who Microsoft did just that to.

Novell's new patent policy is extremely commendable. It'll likely have an effect against SCO-like (but with patents added) suits of the future. But against the Microsofts of the world, we'll have to see.