Article of Gnome, Mono, Ubuntu and growing influence of Microsoft

[thephotoman]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:02:49 +0100, Nils Kassube wrote:

> Jan Claeys wrote:
>> Did you or someone else do an investigation into what parts are most
>> vulnerable to software patents (in those countries that allow them)?
> 
> Yes, Microsoft did the research. They came to the conclusion that 235 of
> their patents are infringed [1]. As they don't tell anybody which
> patents, I suppose there are many trivial patents like [2].
> 
> But seriously, according to [3] it would not be wise to do such a
> research without prior lawyer advice. At least in the USA the damages
> for patent infringement are tripled if the infringer knows about the
> patent.

And you honestly believe them?  They've made that claim for the last 
several years now, and it's pretty much an idle threat.  If they were 
truly worried about their patents, or in any way interested in protecting 
them legitimately, they'd have informed the proper maintainers about 
these patents.  If the patents do exist and are valid (even if the first 
is true, the second is almost certainly not), they would have legally 
been required to do something about it.

No, the patent threat is a non-issue.  Ignore it.  Microsoft's just being 
the 800 pound troll in the corner.  That said, Mono has a number of 
technical failings that would discourage me from using it.  
Interestingly, those are the exact same reasons I hesitate to use Java.  
For those looking to move code to free/open source platforms, Mono is a 
good thing.  But for new free/open source software, we should stick to 
the languages that have built our software or that have emerged from the 
community.