Berin, thanks for the insights.
I think we have two ways to look at this: The .net developer's and the Java developer's. Whatever MS says, we will not know what will be in the public domain until MS actually puts it there. Probably, not even MS itself knows really what will be there and what will be patented - I can imagine that they are thinking "can we really patent this without driving away developers?". For the .net Avalon developer, the openness of .net is something they have to evaluate themselves - if it turns out that MS has patented key things then we may just have to eject all .net code from Apache CVS. Tough luck, but that's the risk your run when developing for .net and that should be obvious to any .net developer. As for the path taken in developing, that's again something the .net developers have to decide. A web services API could very well be a must-have *right now*, which means that the devs have to weigh risk/gain and come up with a plan that makes sense. I'm simply not capable of making that calculation due to my very limited exposure to the .net world. I'm not saying that your plan is wrong, but I am saying that a justification for it must include not just what the rep told you, but also some calculation of just what we need to develop in order for the project to remain viable. At one extreme, we can't just put all .net dev on hold until MS has sorted things out in two or three years' time. At the other extreme, we shouldn't fall prey to the not-invented-here syndrome if MS has an open standard just days away. For the Java developer I think the major issue will be .net interop within much less than two years. Development here, I think, will have to follow the same lines as the .net dev. Consider the risk of failure due to patent infringement, consider the gain, come up with a decision, execute. If things turn to sh*t, well, deal with it and move on. It's not much different from what we do now. /LS > From: Berin Loritsch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
