Intro and Questions...

[Coleman Kane]

On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 01:41 -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote:
> 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 remember there being a large amount of fear surrounding the project.
>From what I can tell, the patent-sensitivity mainly pertains to the
following components:
  * ASP.NET
  * ADO.NET
  * Windows Forms

The community at-large seems to accept that there are probably no
enforceable patent claims on the Base system and the compiler. This is,
for instance, what is used for Gtk# software such as Tomboy and F-Spot.

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

I suppose I'd probably need to read up on their agreement to see what
Novell considers a "customer" or a "developer". If I download an install
SLED, am I covered forever? How does this not also cover me if I run the
software on other OSes (as long as I run one SLED install somewhere)?

So the question is, if I can install SLED and become covered, then why
can't I become covered by downloading Mono and installing it?

> 
> 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
> 

I'll keep reading up on it, thanks for the pointers...

-- 
Coleman Kane