Intro and Questions...

Bill McGonigle bill at bfccomputing.com
Fri Apr 18 01:41:02 EDT 2008


On Apr 16, 2008, at 11:22, Coleman Kane wrote:

> Novell has been the "Sun Micro" to the mono project and seems to be  
> very
> very good to it.


Yeah, if you're doing mono work you better be using a SuSE-based  
distribution, since only Novell has a patent-indemnification pact  
with Microsoft, and mono is likely patent-encumbered by Microsoft,  
and Microsoft has already promised to take action against those it  
feels are abusing the patents it holds which are being used by FLOSS  
software.

I'd say running anything non-SuSE would be dangerous, but ask your  
council for a real opinion. :)

My non-legal opinion is that this is a good reason to stay away from  
mono; it's a patent trap.  It's also, unfortunately why I've been  
moving away from GNOME after more than a decade of using and testing  
(to KDE).  If somebody points out to me that mono has gone under  
GPL3, I'll take back everything I said.

-Bill

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