[Nottingham] Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#

[Martin]

Joshua Lock wrote:
> 2009/7/20 Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk>:
>> Folks,
>>
>> Rather an interesting post:
>>
>>
>> Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#
>>
>> http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono
>>
>>
>> Fanciful?
>> Extremist?
>> A form of self-sabotage?
> 
> A bunch of C# and the CLI are now available under the community promise
> 
> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
> 
> AFAIK, please correct me if I'm wrong, the only parts which aren't
> covered are WinForms, ASPX and other Windowsy things.
> 
> IMHO the above are points worth noting for this discussion.

Interesting angle, but...

Including this comment?:

"You're more observant than I am, lol. I checked too and I didn't notice 
that XML file listing the classes. You're right there's a *lot missing* 
  but it is still a pretty decent foundation to build on. ..."


Sooo... Is that in reality just a 'teaser' to lead people in to then 
suffer exploitation by Microsoft's submarine patents portfolio and/or 
hidden legalese clauses?

Or... Is the indemnification language used truly open and truly denies 
Microsoft any option to pursue any patents or licensing "rights", for 
*ALL* aspects of C#?


>> ... But... Note also the ever increasing debacle for using VFAT... And
>> the past silliness with mp3... And the very expensive SCO attacks...
>>
>> It's all a jungle out there!

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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