[ossig] Microsoft Warns Mono Developers Of Implementing A Full Windows Software Stack (Software Patents Alert!)

[Nur Hussein <nhussein@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ok, we *knew* this was coming.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1829797,00.asp

"A few weeks later, Microsoft told The Register that 'developers
planning to clone Indigo or Avalon will have to first engage in talks
on licensing the company's Intellectual Property.'

A Microsoft representative confirmed that "while Microsoft is quite
open to discussing with Novell the licensing of potentially applicable
intellectual property, Novell has not licensed anything or even
approached Microsoft on this topic."

And, as far as Microsoft is concerned, any attempt to reverse engineer
Avalon or Indigo will require a license.

"Intellectual property is something any cloner needs to think about,"
said a Microsoft spokesperson."

Notice how the spokesfudder says "intellectual property", but declines
to mention which laws that apply in this case (I am guessing, patent
law). I hate that phrase, "intellectual property", since it's legally
ambigious and has connations of self-righteousness to boot. But I
digress. I like Mono and I really want it to become an alternative
software stack for Microsoft that will be compatible with 3rd-party
applications; if this happens we are no longer *dependent* on Windows
and will have true choice at last.

But alas MS will never never allow this. Remember this folks when MS
says it wants to "reach out to the OSS community", what it really want
to do is kill us and stop us from levelling the playing field.

-= Nur Hussein =-



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