[OT] Free software versus software idea patents

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 11:50 -0400, Benjamin Kaplan wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:31 AM, harrismh777 <harrismh777 at charter.net> wrote:
> > Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> ...n Mono, which
> is an open source implementation of the ECMA-334 and ECMA-335
> standards. The only difference between it and Python is that Python
> was developed at a research institute while .NET was developed at a
> corporation.

+1  

Please read
<http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2009/Jan-19.html>

If you still do not understand why this is a bogus issue then just go
away.

Most important bit being:
<quote>
What I find even "funnier" is that Microsoft supposedly holds a number
of patents in a number of areas frequently used by open-source projects,
such as HTML, CSS, C++, XML, and others. So why don't we ever see any
suggestions to avoid these technologies because the Big Bad Microsoft
might sue? For that matter, (again) considering how vague software
patents tend to be, wouldn't many Microsoft patents on .NET stand a
chance at being applicable toward Java, Python, and other projects?
(Again) Why just focus on Mono?
</quote>

> > There is no FUD here...
> > NO FEAR
> > Absolutely CERTAIN
> > NO DOUBT
> >>At this point Microsoft has absolutely nothing to offer the computer science community at large except bzillions of euros ( or dollars ) of wasteful litigation and head-ache.
> Looks like FUD and smells like FUD. Unless you happen to be on
> Microsoft's legal team and know that they're about to sue everyone
> who's using Mono.

+1

Not to mention that they've collaborated with Mono on numerous
occasions, and other projects [like Samba], so it suing them would
pretty a change of precedent.