[TriLUG] Linux for the desktop

[James Manning]

> MS owns rights to the technology though.  

to their implementation, yes - Mono is not Microsoft's
implementation.  There's a point to the ECMA specification :)

> I've read some things pitting Java vs .NET and IIRC .NET solved more
> problems for more people but the history of MS "sharing" impedes its
> wider acceptance?

This isn't about MS sharing their implementation, it's about a wholly
separate implementation which contains no Microsoft code.

I can't say for sure, but this feels like the first (or maybe it's
just the first very-visible) time Microsoft has published an ECMA
spec.  More info in a link later in this reply.

> I thought Mono was being eyed for attack by the MS legal team.

Miguel's spoke about this on numerous occasions, in numerous slashdot
comments, but the easiest link for me to find at the moment is their
faq, of which there are multiple relevant sections.  A couple:

    http://www.go-mono.org/faq.html#basics
    http://www.go-mono.org/faq.html#msft
    http://www.go-mono.org/faq.html#patents

There were certainly lots of articles on the subject about a year ago:

    http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/12/25/213255.shtml

... but IMHO the Mono FAQ entries are good sources of information
about the situation from what I've seen.

Yes, it "feels" like playing with the enemy or whatever, but really, I
don't personally see C# as a language or the .NET CLR (its spec, more
specifically) as a runtime any more restricted by Microsoft (to this
point in time at least) than Java as a language or the Java Virtual
Machine by Sun.  Sun's history about keeping Java unto itself (ISO and
ECMA standard attempts getting pulled by them) hasn't been sparkling
(and, like Microsoft, Sun makes closed-source commercial software as
well, and that doesn't make either of them evil).

Remember, it's not necessarily an either/or - projects like IKVM exist
too, just as something else as a possibility down the road.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/ikvm/

I like the Java language, I like the C# language, I like a lot of
languages.  Really, I think everyone should.  Language bigots are no
better than OS bigots :)

but, to get back to the topic, Mono's doing fine for now, and while
Microsoft can use their patents to attack others (just like any
company with a patent portfolio), I think we're better off judging
them and Mono based on the present instead of the past.  Hopefully we
can look towards a bright future filled with peace and softare that
starts sucking less.  That'd be nice :)

James
-- 
James Manning <http://www.sublogic.com/james/>
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