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Thread: Clarification on the Mono and MS .NET issue

  1. #41
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    Re: Clarification on the Mono and MS .NET issue

    Quote Originally Posted by alternatealias View Post
    If Ubuntu ships the Windows.Forms addon, then that is a separate issue from whether or not core Mono is safe.

    As far as a RAND-Z promise, talk to the GNU developers working on Portable.NET or send an email to Microsoft itself for confirmation.


    Here is a quote from Jim Miller from the Microsoft .NET team:
    The ECMA process requires that all patents held by member companies that are essential for implementing its standards are available under "reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms" for the purpose of
    implementing those Standards. This is the normal condition used in all
    International Standards organizations, including both ECMA and ISO.

    But Microsoft (and our co-sponsors, Intel and Hewlett-Packard) went
    further and have agreed that our patents essential to implementing C#
    and CLI will be available on a "royalty-free and otherwise RAND" basis
    for this purpose.
    Satisfied?
    Saying that the patents "will be available" is NOT the same thing as the licenses existing.

    If I write book and state that I will make that book available for anyone to read at no cost, that does not mean that Prentice-Hall or Barnes&Noble can just go ahead and print off a bunch of copies and give them away. I am the one who determines when and how those books are to be available for free reading. If you infer that my statement grants license to all publishers to print and hand out free copies, I must tell you, you are WRONG. I still retain the rights to negotiate the terms of how people get to read my book (at no cost). I might choose a different publisher or bookstore, or might give copies to libraries, or I might individually meet everyone wanting one and give them a handwritten copy. None of those things are specified in my statement and it would be completely misguided to suggest that I ever implied I was sacrificing such options.

    THAT is precisely analogous to what has been uttered by every Microsoft employee (including Mr Miller) who has spoken on the topic of .NET's ECMA-covered patents over the last six years. Yes, Microsoft will make the patent licensing available, and not even charge you money. But you still need to negotiate your licensing with them. This is precisely what Novell has done, negotiated a license with Microsoft so that they themselves (Novell) can use that patented technology. That doesn't mean that everyone else falls under the same licensing agreement.

    And what I am discussing here is NOT limited to Windows.forms, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET. It is about the ECMA-covered technologies which everybody feels so damned confident about using because leaders of the Mono Project either can't parse simple English statements, or they are intentionally lying.

    If you want to argue whether or not Microsoft patents are valid (such as Smartboyathome has suggested), I can accept that and would support anyone in their battle against any software patent.

    But when the Mono Project FAQ states that "Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those components for free and for any purpose", IT IS WRONG!
    Last edited by saulgoode; June 12th, 2008 at 10:39 AM.
    "We visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading, swimming (to shore). Most of the people were friendly and delightful; only two arrows shot at us, and only one went near -- So much for savages!" - J.C. Patterson

  2. #42
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    Re: Clarification on the Mono and MS .NET issue

    Quote Originally Posted by saulgoode View Post
    But when the Mono Project FAQ states that "Basically a grant is given to anyone who want to implement those components for free and for any purpose", IT IS WRONG!
    If they are so wrong, then why have Red Hat's and Ubuntu's lawyers (in addition to Novell's) all deemed it safe? Why, also, have the GNU lawyers deemed it safe to implement as part of DotGNU?

    If the ECMA portions of the .NET Framework are not under RAND-Z, then DotGNU/Portable.NET must be breaking the law because they for sure have not paid Microsoft to license the technology

  3. #43
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    Re: Clarification on the Mono and MS .NET issue

    Quote Originally Posted by alternatealias View Post





    Satisfied?
    I'll be satisfied if anything corroborating the above information is available on an official Microsoft site and stated in a binding manner, not just some dev's statements. To date, the closest thing I've seen to an actual link was on the Mono site where they dugg up some long deleted link (via the internet archive) to a single reply on some random mailing list. If that was the best the Mono team itself could do to produce a link detailing alleged patent amnesty, then I think it's safe to assume the patent amnesty isn't an official MS policy.

    Here are the facts as I see them.

    1.MS obviously holds patents over all of .net, even the ECMA standardized parts (under the terms of RAND)

    2. Novel and others have paid MS for patent amnesty and MS has worked with them on Mono related stuff thereby establishing many precedents (most importantly, the RAND terms)

    3. Claims of patent amnesty are extremely hard to corroborate and essentially amount people making unnoficial claims on random mailing lists. Even worse, the claims have since been deleted and are only available in archives.

    In summary;

    Evidence that MS holds enfocable patents on all of .NET
    Extremely plentiful and easy to find through official channels

    Evidence that MS has granted amnesty on afformentioned patents
    Extremely hard to find (and even then it's people who have no official capacity to make such decisions speaking completely 'off the record') . Never officially stated.



    Just to set the record straight, I would love for you to prove me completely wrong. I'm no biased MS hater. I think it would be great if we could use mono (or any language that lets more devs work with Linux) without worrying about anything. In the end it means better software for all of us.

  4. #44
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    Re: Clarification on the Mono and MS .NET issue

    Quote Originally Posted by alternatealias View Post
    If they are so wrong, then why have Red Hat's and Ubuntu's lawyers (in addition to Novell's) all deemed it safe? Why, also, have the GNU lawyers deemed it safe to implement as part of DotGNU?
    Perhaps the better question to ask is why Novell, after performing a legal assessment early in 2006, deemed it unsafe to implement Mono without entering into a Patent Covenant with Microsoft later that year?

    Even if RedHat deemed Mono safe -- feel free to provide a reference supporting that, as RedHat doesn't include Mono -- nowhere have I seen that it was based upon RAND promises from Microsoft. If anything (and again RedHat doesn't include Mono), comments from RedHat personnel (in an unofficial capacity) indicate that any "safety margin" is based upon Mono being included in the Open Invention Network. Likewise, none of the comments from Mark Shuttleworth cite hypothetical RAND licenses from Microsoft as being behind Ubuntu's decision.

    So none of this supports the assertion from the Mono Project that Mono is indemnified by Microsoft.
    "We visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading, swimming (to shore). Most of the people were friendly and delightful; only two arrows shot at us, and only one went near -- So much for savages!" - J.C. Patterson

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