Horst Herb wrote: > On Tuesday 16 May 2006 07:41, Tim Churches wrote: >>> Minus the patented and mostly undisclosed / undocumented core features, >>> e.g. the authentication bits / cryptography etc. >>> .Net is a poorly implemented good idea >> The opinion of those who have really used .NET and delved into its >> internals seems to be is that it is actually rather well designed and >> rather well implemented. Witness the fact that IronPython, which is > > With "poorly implemented good idea" I was referring to the fact that they > keep > essential parts proprietary (= locking competitive implementations / other > platforms effectively out) in a system that *could* be close to ideal.
I'm told that the claims of the Microsoft patents relating to .NET and C# are so broad that all important aspects of the system have to be regarded as proprietary, at least in those countries which permit software patents and in which Microsoft has sought such patents - and that includes the US, Japan, India, Canada and Australia. Mono is a much safer bet in Europe, because Europe does not permit software patents (at least not yet, and even if it does so in the future, it won't permit retrospective patent applications). So there is no monopoly on .NET or C# and no possibility of a direct threat to Mono in Europe and in almost all developing and transitional countries. And yes, the shame of it all is that .NET and/or Mono could be a fabulous platform. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
