[Gllug] Microsoft announces deals with Lynux !

Richard Jones rich at annexia.org
Sat Nov 4 11:08:05 UTC 2006


On Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 04:02:29PM +0100, salsaman at xs4all.nl wrote:
> >On Fri, November 3, 2006 11:32 am, Richard Jones wrote:
> >>(1) What are these supposed patents which cover Mono and OpenXML?
> >
> I believe M$ has some patents on some of the .net/mono libraries. Hence
> most developers are avoiding using Mono, since M$ could turn around and
> start enforcing their patents at any time.
> 
> Regarding OpenXML, I believe M$ has patents on the XML schemas used for
> Office documents.

Yes well this is the point.  You CANNOT patent a library or an XML
schema, not even in the wacky and wonderful world of US law, and
categorically not in the EU.

They might patent something like, I don't know, an inventive new way
to do garbage collection (GC) in the .Net runtime.  Even that could
not prevent GC in general in Mono[1] since people have been doing
GC[2] since long before .Net and even long before Java.

I say again, what are the patents?  Patent numbers please.  Until then
this is all FUD.

Rich.

[1] Note I have no idea if Mono/.Net does garbage collection or just
ref counting; that doesn't change the point.

[2] Substitute p-code, JIT, object brokering, remote calls and all the
other supposed "innovative" developments in .Net which have been
around since the 70s.

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
Merjis - web marketing and technology - http://merjis.com
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