what is mono??

[pbpersson]

That depends. It's been TEN YEARS since Mono was started, and still nobody's named these patented components.

In fact, nowadays Mono bundles a few libraries which Microsoft released under FOSS licenses - including full rights to any patents that code may implement (ASP.NET MVC, DLR, F#, etc)

I found a web site where some law experts in the FOSS community examined the wording of the Microsoft agreement and had quite a few concerns about the loopholes.

In my scenario, Microsoft would only use this as a legal weapon at a future date when:

1. A significant portion of each Linux distribution used Mono
2. Linux was threatening the market dominance of Windows

Neither of these conditions exist today.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

<humor>

Mononucleosis, or mono, is a viral infection causing fever, sore throat, and swollen lymph glands. Mono may begin slowly with fatigue, a general ill feeling, headache, and sore throat. The sore throat slowly gets worse. Your tonsils become swollen and develop a whitish-yellow covering. The lymph nodes in the neck are frequently swollen and painful. A pink, measles-like rash can occur.

</humor>

[Georgia boy]

<humor>

Mononucleosis, or mono, is a viral infection causing fever, sore throat, and swollen lymph glands. Mono may begin slowly with fatigue, a general ill feeling, headache, and sore throat. The sore throat slowly gets worse. Your tonsils become swollen and develop a whitish-yellow covering. The lymph nodes in the neck are frequently swollen and painful. A pink, measles-like rash can occur.

</humor>

=D>

[directhex]

I found a web site where some law experts in the FOSS community examined the wording of the Microsoft agreement and had quite a few concerns about the loopholes.

In my scenario, Microsoft would only use this as a legal weapon at a future date when:

1. A significant portion of each Linux distribution used Mono
2. Linux was threatening the market dominance of Windows

Neither of these conditions exist today.

You're conflating multiple issues, and not replying to what I said.

[pbpersson]

You're conflating multiple issues, and not replying to what I said.

Well, you said that you did not know what components in .NET Microsoft had released under the FOSS license.

The web page I supplied linked to a Microsoft web page where I found the following .NET assemblies covered under that license:

[MC-NBFS]: .NET Binary Format: SOAP Data Structure RFC 2125 – Bandwidth Allocation Protocol (BAP)

[MC-NBFSE]: .NET Binary Format: SOAP Extension RFC 2131, RFC 2132, and RFC 3361- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)

[MC-NBFX]: .NET Binary Format: XML Data Structure RFC 2205, RFC 2209, and RFC 2210– Resource Reservation Setup (RSVP)

[MC-NMF]: .NET Message Framing Protocol Specification RFC 2222 – Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)

[MC-NPR]: .NET Packet Routing Protocol Specification

Additionally, the article I was reading said that within Mono there was something called the "Microsoft Compatibility Pack" which was "a gift" from Microsoft to the FOSS community.

I am sorry, I do not have time to research all this. I thought someone would know something about this.

In the past I have been involved in projects depending upon the future plans of Microsoft only to have them change their direction and leave us hanging. Millions of people were affected but that makes no difference to them. Any project now which depends upon Microsoft I avoid because I have been burned in the past.

This is exactly why I am using Java technology for all my cross-platform development projects.

How much of Mono is based on MS technology that they can pull the plug on?

[directhex]

Well, you said that you did not know what components in .NET Microsoft had released under the FOSS license.

Having personally done an audit of Mono's licensing (all 40,000 files), I have a reasonable idea of what they've released under FOSS licenses.

I said there was no documented case of a Microsoft patent infringed in Mono.

The web page I supplied linked to a Microsoft web page where I found the following .NET assemblies covered under that license:

It's not a source license. The Community Promise is a patent grant for unnamed patents (i.e. "if you end up infringing a patent we own in order to implement $FOO, don't worry about it"), almost identical in language to that which covers ODF from Oracle. The things you list are specifications covered by the Open Specification Promise (which is a patent grant similar to the Community Promise, but with different rules regarding subsets of the spec).

Additionally, the article I was reading said that within Mono there was something called the "Microsoft Compatibility Pack" which was "a gift" from Microsoft to the FOSS community.

No, there's no such thing.

In the past I have been involved in projects depending upon the future plans of Microsoft only to have them change their direction and leave us hanging. Millions of people were affected but that makes no difference to them. Any project now which depends upon Microsoft I avoid because I have been burned in the past.

Mono is what we call "Free & Open Source technology". What this means, amongst other things, is that you can't be "left hanging" by a change in the framework, because you have the source code right there - if need be, you can use the source for the last version which did what you need, and do whatever with it. As an example, Mono 2.8+ no longer support execution of .NET 1.1 apps, but you're welcome to use 2.6.7 for 1.1 support - or use Mono's remapping support to execute 1.1 apps as 2.0 or 4.0

How much of Mono is based on MS technology that they can pull the plug on?

I'm not sure I fully understand your hypothetical scenario. What "plug" will they be pulling, exactly? Mono implements published ECMA/ISO specifications, plus additional libraries, plus some of its own special sauce. You need to be more clear about your doomsday scenario - preferably in a way grounded in reality - to explain exactly how "Mono is based on MS technology".

[pbpersson]

I just read articles on several web sites regarding this and they all contain the following text. You have never heard of this?

Microsoft compatibility stack: The Microsoft compatibility stack provides a pathway for porting Windows .NET applications to Linux. They comprise ADO.NET, ASP Dot Net Development, and Windows.Forms, among others. They are not covered by ECMA standards, some of them stay subject to patent fears and concerns.

[directhex]

I just read articles on several web sites regarding this and they all contain the following text. You have never heard of this?

It's not terminology I've ever seen used.

Okay, that's referring to various libraries which are implemented in Mono, duplicating functionality in Microsoft.NET, but which is not otherwise covered by applicable patent grants (of which there are three major categories).

Remember how a patent grant works, by the way - "When we wrote X, we believe our implementation covers a number of patents - we assume other implementations would also need those patents so grant you permission to use them". The existence of a patent grant for something in no way means all implementations of a specification require those patents.

The subset of technologies being discussed (e.g. ADO.NET, which is the standard library for talking to databases in .NET and is of course absolutely novel and impossible to find prior art for in, say, JDBC) relate to things which have no explicit or implicit patent grant. That doesn't mean a) that patents are infringed by all implementations e.g. Mono or Portable.NET, or b) that patents held on that technology are even valid or defensible in court, or c) that any patents are even held in the first place, or d) that any identified patent infringement can't be easily worked around.

[Jordanbadangayon]

Thanks for all the replies. It has been an interesting and informative discussion.

[Wamiduku]

Kind of odd that no one in this discussion mentioned that all Mono developers have been fired, http://blog.wezeku.com/2011/05/17/no...-did-axe-mono/

I think there's a separate thread about it somewhere.