Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
On Nov 4, 2006, at 7:56 PM, Jonathan Pryor wrote:*Where* did Novell admit anything similar to this? To paraphrase theSCO case, provide file line numbers for confirmation. :-)Microsoft Novell only appear to have signed a statement saying thatneither company will sue the other companies customers over *any*patents. This would likely apply to Novell Netware and eDirectory asmuch as it applies to openSUSE.Forgive me for being naive, but regardless of the IP status of Mono, or any of the Novell products, how on earth does the legality of their product come under the realm of my responsibility, to where I can be held liable for using their products, notably, Mono?Say I'm implementing a completely cross-platform solution that uses the .NET runtime on the Windows platform, and the Mono runtime everywhere else, if there is any liable intellectual property in the Mono runtime, how on earth am I (as a customer of Novell, and someone who merely uses the Mono runtime) in any legal danger?To use to a physical metaphor, say I buy these special receding screws from MiguelCo Construction Supplies, and I build numerous houses/buildings with said receding screws (since MiguelCo's receding screws are cheaper, and work with more types of material), if further down the line its discovered that MiguelCo's receding screws are really a take-off on GatesCorp's design (which are far more expensive, and only work in redwood indigenous to the pacific northwest), legally, how can I even be included in any sort of litigation?All I did was build something that uses legitimate (to the best of my knowledge) tools and materials? Predict doom as much as you want about a Novell/Microsoft partnership, but how does their IP somehow damn my products that base off of theirs?That said, maybe Microsoft will be a bit more forthcoming with some of the features/specifications that are needed to have proper .NET 2.0 class library compatibilityor they'll just sue us all ;)CheersR. Tyler Ballance: Lead Mac Developer at bleep. software contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Hello, You have some valid questions, and I have followed up to some of the concerns similar to this one on my blog: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-04.html In addition, Jonathan Pryor has a good entry that explores the issue in more detail than I have done, and also is a good primer for anyone that might be confused: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2006/Nov-04.html That being said, a few corrections: Didn't Miguel de Icaza assured us that Mono was safe, that there are no known patents that Mono infringes, that .NET is an ECMA standard, that even if Mono infringes on some patents then the Open Inventions Network will protect it ? I said the first part; I also said that Mono was one of the technologies protected by the OIN. Didn't Miguel said that Novell conducted a whole investigation on Microsoft owned patents and no infringed patents where found ? I did not say that, and I have no idea where this comes from. It is not practical to review every patent out there (owned by everyone out there) and match every claim against every piece of code written in the source code. Many patents will likely be invalid, many will have prior art, many will be unenforceable, many claims are too broad to be valid in court; So the only way of testing a patent is to go to court. This likely means that a patent holder will need to determine which parts might infringe, and might have to evaluate what is the cost of going to court, what are the possible benefits to himself (if you sue someone that never made any money, what exactly will you win?), and also what are the risks of a counter-lawsuit? The patent holder must ask himself whether the trouble of going to court is worth the price of a potential counter suit. Another alternative is to come up with some kind of agreement, we believe we own this much IP, we believe you own that much IP combined with we believe we are making this much money, you are making that much money. There might be others, and the deals will greatly vary depending on the cases and usually they cover more than patents (like Novell/MS covers technical collaborations). Miguel ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
My brain still hurts on this whole thing. Here is what I'd _like_ to think : Microsoft isn't saying it will sue anyone over infringement, but its not saying (to everyone) its not. The possibility is enough for corporate suits to consider keeping Linux out of the server room (in some businesses) just because of that. So this deal definitely allows some IT VP's to say - Put in Linux now, I feel totally safe with it. Having said that - what happens in 5 years? [big question mark here] What happens in 5 years? Who the heck knows. And here is the reality Try and find Corel Linux. You won't. Now find out why and you'll see something very unpleasant. Getting into bed with the devil is a sure way to get the wobbly dangly bits of your anatomy well and truly burned. Or because it was a crappy product that was poorly managed. ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Hello, And here is the reality Try and find Corel Linux. You won't. Now find out why and you'll see something very unpleasant. Getting into bed with the devil is a sure way to get the wobbly dangly bits of your anatomy well and truly burned. The story of Corel Linux is much more complicated than this. But the MS/Corel agreement actually did not even *touch* Corel Linux. The agreement between Microsoft and Corel was not around Corel Linux as many believe. It was a resolution of their patent disputes, and also a contractual agreement to have Corel port parts of .NET to Unix. Corel did provide the development components to port Rotor to Unix, which is how Rotor ended up running on BSD. It had nothing to do with Corel Linux, see: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=19509DisplayTab=Article Corel Linux had its own share of issues at the time; It was a Debian fork, with a number of proprietary components (some desktop components, I cant remember which, I believe the file manager). The problem with having a proprietary distro is that it severely limited the testers, and the natural grass-roots adoption. Eventually Corel sold off that business to a venture capital fund and it became Xandros. Miguel. ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Hello, VP's to say - Put in Linux now, I feel totally safe with it. Having said that - what happens in 5 years? [big question mark here] What happens in 5 years? Who the heck knows. This is a common practice, it basically means that the companies renegotiate the terms at that point. And it is done because changing market conditions might alter any balance used today for whatever the agreement terms were. Miguel ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Yes, thanks.This announcement generated a lot of negative feelings towards Novell.It has everything to do with Microsoft still being the main threat to our ecosystem.Anyway, time will tell if this partnership was good or bad for the open-source landscape. I am sorry I posted this topic here ... many developers don't want to hear such rants,so can you guys initiate a new mailing list where such issues can be discussed ? On 11/5/06, Miguel de Icaza [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello,You have some valid questions, and I have followed up to some of theconcerns similar to this one on my blog:http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Nov-04.html In addition, Jonathan Pryor has a good entry that explores the issue inmore detail than I have done, and also is a good primer for anyone thatmight be confused: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2006/Nov-04.htmlThat being said, a few corrections: Didn't Miguel de Icaza assured us that Mono was safe, that there are no known patents that Mono infringes, that .NET is an ECMA standard, that even if Mono infringes on some patents then the Open Inventions Network will protect it ?I said the first part;I also said that Mono was one of the technologies protected by the OIN. Didn't Miguel said that Novell conducted a whole investigation on Microsoft owned patents and no infringed patents where found ?I did not say that, and I have no idea where this comes from. It is not practical to review every patent out there (owned by everyoneout there) and match every claim against every piece of code written inthe source code.Many patents will likely be invalid, many will have prior art, many will be unenforceable, many claims are too broad to be valid in court;Sothe only way of testing a patent is to go to court.Thislikely means that a patent holder will need to determine whichparts might infringe, and might have to evaluate what is the cost of going to court, what are the possible benefits to himself (if you suesomeone that never made any money, what exactly will you win?), and alsowhat are the risks of a counter-lawsuit?The patent holder must ask himself whether the trouble of going to court is worth the price of apotential counter suit.Another alternative is to come up with some kind of agreement, webelieve we own this much IP, we believe you own that much IP combined with we believe we are making this much money, you are making that muchmoney.There might be others, and the deals will greatly vary depending on thecases and usually they cover more than patents (like Novell/MS covers technical collaborations).Miguel ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
To answer my own question ... on second thought ... such a list would not be recommended. Not to mention the number of trolls it would attract (like me). Sorry ... stupid idea. ... I'll get back to hacking now :) Alex Nedelcu wrote: I am sorry I posted this topic here ... many developers don't want to hear such rants, so can you guys initiate a new mailing list where such issues can be discussed ? ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
[Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Hi, I always respected Miguel de Icaza's judgment and he always has a good and sane point of view. I am a little troubled about the recent announcement, about the Novell/Microsoft agreement. Didn't Miguel de Icaza assured us that Mono was safe, that there are no known patents that Mono infringes, that .NET is an ECMA standard, that even if Mono infringes on some patents then the Open Inventions Network will protect it ? Didn't Miguel said that Novell conducted a whole investigation on Microsoft owned patents and no infringed patents where found ? And Novell is the owner of the Unix copyrights (I am no lawyer, so please correct me if I am wrong) ... and Novell just admitted that GNU/Linux has pieces that infringe on Microsoft's intellectual property ? True or not true ... there are many companies that might stand up and demand the same royalties that Microsoft is asking. The solution is to fight the whole software patents system, not getting around it by a minor deal with the devil himself. What if companies like IBM or Oracle or Apple take a stand and demand the same thing ? Miguel says in his blog something like: So today we have secured a peace of mind for Novell customers that might have been worried about possible patent infringements open source deployments But doesn't anyone at Novell notice that the REST of the open-source landscape is now in a greater danger than before ? Frankly ... nobody gives a shit about Mono as a comercial product, Mono is only interesting as an open-source product, that can be innovated upon by anyone, and that can be freely distributed. What is happening ? I already invested in Mono, I also switched to Gnome the whole network that I am managing, Gnome which is tainted with Novell's products. I am not the only one wondering: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061103073628401 Please Miguel ... give me an explanation on why this move was necessary, and also keep in mind that a lot of us value Free Software, and won't trade it for anything else. ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
My brain still hurts on this whole thing. Here is what I'd _like_ to think : Microsoft isn't saying it will sue anyone over infringement, but its not saying (to everyone) its not. The possibility is enough for corporate suits to consider keeping Linux out of the server room (in some businesses) just because of that. So this deal definitely allows some IT VP's to say - Put in Linux now, I feel totally safe with it. Having said that - what happens in 5 years? [big question mark here] Novell would like us to think this is a Patent muzzle for both sides in an exchange, and not to say either one was going to pull the trigger, but now they simply cannot. This might be 100% the truth (I don't know). To have the (security) in OpenSuse is also a plus. I am guessing that SLED will have this protection now, and at 50$? its a very smart choice for a business to have as a desktop, also with the benefit that there will be better integration to MS software. The thing that I don't like is, will this hurt Mono? slow down development because resources leave? or distros (i.e. fedora) don't include Mono with it? When it comes to Patents you really can't do an investigation to prove absolute free of. Just to get a warm feeling. If you have a beef with someone using your technology, your supposed to make it known, so the potential guilty party doesn't go to far down the road. I think MS has already waited to long. How can they defend themselves against the simple question Why now?, why not have notified infringers back X number of years ago ... doing it years after just makes it look like a ploy to inflict max. damage. Something usually not looked kindly at by a Judge. On the other hand, given how MS makes out with lawsuits, one can't help but think they own the Judge, but thats a whole other topic for another day. Again the fact is, no one was going to bet their life that MS was never going to strike, and as unlikely as one might think it is, with this agreement, people can deploy Suse with good indemnification. It would be nice if Novell did something to help public image now, like: donate to the different funds that work for the betterment of Linux, put more resources on Mono, and other projects, provide aid to whole new Linux open source projects. This would make a clear statement to the community, it is serious about making Linux and open source healthier, and basically putting back to the community (even more then it already has). One thing I believe very strongly about, with respect to the Linux community, is that they 1) never forget (or at least for 10's of years), 2) that the community holds a lot of power. If Novell intends to have Linux be it's bread and butter for many years to come, the only way this current MS deal is going to work for Novell, is if the community is at a minimum indifferent about it. Less then indifferent, that is, community resentment to some degree, in a few years down the road, is going to come back to haunt. Most people should realize that Novell is a company with shareholders, and thus, it needs to look after their (shareholders) best interests, and not just short term interest. This means much of what Novell does has to earn money. Novell obviously has a balancing act, with profit on one side and community respect on the other. From what I can see so far, the move Novell made actually looks really good for its share holders, and doesn't look to bad for Linux and open source. Linux will benefit in general if Suse can make its way into many more high profile data centers. I think that if the community sours, Novell has got to open the bank vault and give large to the Linux and open source community, to preserve the balance. The PR people might have to start earning their X-mas bonuses starting now! -tl On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 23:12 +0200, Alexandru Nedelcu wrote: Hi, I always respected Miguel de Icaza's judgment and he always has a good and sane point of view. I am a little troubled about the recent announcement, about the Novell/Microsoft agreement. Didn't Miguel de Icaza assured us that Mono was safe, that there are no known patents that Mono infringes, that .NET is an ECMA standard, that even if Mono infringes on some patents then the Open Inventions Network will protect it ? Didn't Miguel said that Novell conducted a whole investigation on Microsoft owned patents and no infringed patents where found ? And Novell is the owner of the Unix copyrights (I am no lawyer, so please correct me if I am wrong) ... and Novell just admitted that GNU/Linux has pieces that infringe on Microsoft's intellectual property ? True or not true ... there are many companies that might stand up and demand the same royalties that Microsoft is asking. The solution is to fight the whole software patents system, not getting around it by a minor deal with the devil himself. What if companies like IBM or Oracle or Apple take a stand and demand the same
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
My brain still hurts on this whole thing. Here is what I'd _like_ to think : Microsoft isn't saying it will sue anyone over infringement, but its not saying (to everyone) its not. The possibility is enough for corporate suits to consider keeping Linux out of the server room (in some businesses) just because of that. So this deal definitely allows some IT VP's to say - Put in Linux now, I feel totally safe with it. Having said that - what happens in 5 years? [big question mark here] And here is the reality Try and find Corel Linux. You won't. Now find out why and you'll see something very unpleasant. Getting into bed with the devil is a sure way to get the wobbly dangly bits of your anatomy well and truly burned. TTFN Paul -- Der einzige Weg, Leute zu kontrollieren ist sie anzulügen - L. Ron Ich kann kein Science-Fiction schreiben Hubbard; Lügner, Betrüger, Fixer und Wohltäter zu niemandem signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
Don't feed the trolls: http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/mono-list/2005-September/028775.html Robert ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 23:12 +0200, Alexandru Nedelcu wrote: Didn't Miguel de Icaza assured us that Mono was safe, that there are no known patents that Mono infringes, that .NET is an ECMA standard, that even if Mono infringes on some patents then the Open Inventions Network will protect it ? Yes. Though Miguel also mentioned that if Mono is ever determined to actually infringe a patent, Mono will be rewritten to work around the patent as well. Didn't Miguel said that Novell conducted a whole investigation on Microsoft owned patents and no infringed patents where found ? Yes. Both of these are still true and unchanged by this agreement. And Novell is the owner of the Unix copyrights (I am no lawyer, so please correct me if I am wrong) ... and Novell just admitted that GNU/Linux has pieces that infringe on Microsoft's intellectual property ? *Where* did Novell admit anything similar to this? To paraphrase the SCO case, provide file line numbers for confirmation. :-) Microsoft Novell only appear to have signed a statement saying that neither company will sue the other companies customers over *any* patents. This would likely apply to Novell Netware and eDirectory as much as it applies to openSUSE. True or not true ... there are many companies that might stand up and demand the same royalties that Microsoft is asking. Also true. The solution is to fight the whole software patents system, not getting around it by a minor deal with the devil himself. What if companies like IBM or Oracle or Apple take a stand and demand the same thing ? Sadly, if you look at Europe you'll see that IBM co. are asking that Europe *permit* software patents instead of outright rejecting them. (At least IBM and Oracle are, I'm not sure about Apple.) So I think your belief in this approach is misguided -- IBM doesn't want to remove software patents -- they're a major source of income. Miguel says in his blog something like: So today we have secured a peace of mind for Novell customers that might have been worried about possible patent infringements open source deployments But doesn't anyone at Novell notice that the REST of the open-source landscape is now in a greater danger than before ? The rest of the open source landscape is unchanged by this announcement. For my reasoning, see: http://www.jprl.com/Blog/archive/development/mono/2006/Nov-04.html Short summary: a patent holder can sue the original developer, the distributor, and/or the customer over patent infringement. The Open Invention Network (OIN) only protects the original developer and anyone who actually belongs to OIN, which (usually) won't include the distributor and the customer (unless they're also the developer). So Mono is still protected to some extent by OIN, just as it was before, but Mono's customers were also potentially liable (unless they somehow got protection from OIN, such as by getting protection from their distributor). Remember: Microsoft isn't the only patent bogeyman. There's also any number of Eolas-like companies running around who'd love to purchase some patent already used within an open standard and start charging for the previously free patent. This was done recently with JPEG, and they just settled for $8 million. OIN will protect Mono from these other companies as well as from Microsoft, but (again) only for those who belong to OIN or can otherwise get protection from OIN. Joe Schmoe living in the middle of nowhere is still unprotected. At the same time, Joe Schmoe living in the middle of nowhere is also unlikely to have lots of money, and thus isn't likely to be a target anyway (why sue the poor?). Nothing major has changed with the Microsoft/Novell agreement. Frankly ... nobody gives a shit about Mono as a comercial product, Mono is only interesting as an open-source product, that can be innovated upon by anyone, and that can be freely distributed. This isn't changing. What is happening ? I already invested in Mono, I also switched to Gnome the whole network that I am managing, Gnome which is tainted with Novell's products. For those keeping score at home, Novell bought SuSE, which was a major backer of KDE, and openSUSE 10.2 is getting several improvements within KDE, so it's fairly likely that KDE is similarly tainted by Novell. So KDE isn't an option either, by this logic, and neither is anything else that Novell's developers have ever contributed to. Which is why I believe this logic is bunk. (Along with the reasons stipulated above.) Please Miguel ... give me an explanation on why this move was necessary, and also keep in mind that a lot of us value Free Software, and won't trade it for anything else. It was necessary because people like peace of mind, and this deal removes a major patent bogeyman from the playing field for Novell customers. Red Hat customers are as safe today as they were last week (as they belong to OIN), and anyone _not_
Re: [Mono-list] Uncertainty and Doubt about MONO
On Sat, 2006-11-04 at 20:26 -0600, R. Tyler Ballance wrote: Forgive me for being naive, but regardless of the IP status of Mono, or any of the Novell products, how on earth does the legality of their product come under the realm of my responsibility, to where I can be held liable for using their products, notably, Mono? Isn't patent law fun? :-) The short version is this: it doesn't matter *who* infringes a patent, as long as it's infringed and the infringing patent is being used. Take the recent JPEG patent as an example. Nothing actually would stop the patent holder from suing you, me, and Joe Schmoe for infringing the patent, as long as they actually wanted to sue us. That of course is what prevents them from suing everyone -- we're (comparatively) poor, so the legal fees of suing us would probably be larger than what they could actually get from us. Consequently, most lawsuits target big fish, because they have more money, thus making for a better return on the lawsuit investment, and typically the settlement of the big fish lawsuit protects the customers of the big fish. Note that the customers weren't protected before the contract/settlement between the patent holder and big fish. A real-life example of this is the Timeline lawsuit mentioned in my blog. In it, Microsoft SQL Server could be used by Microsoft's customers to infringe a patent held by Timeline, and Timeline stated that they could sue Microsoft's customers if the customer infringed the patent. (Which is why they were suing Microsoft, to get Microsoft to protect Microsoft's customers, as Microsoft would likely give Timeline more money than suing all of Microsoft's customers in individual lawsuits would provide...) Say I'm implementing a completely cross-platform solution that uses the .NET runtime on the Windows platform, and the Mono runtime everywhere else, if there is any liable intellectual property in the Mono runtime, how on earth am I (as a customer of Novell, and someone who merely uses the Mono runtime) in any legal danger? If the patent is infringed and you're infringing it (even indirectly), you're in (potential) legal danger. Period. Again, generally you're _not_ in legal danger because you have less money than Novell, so Novell is more likely to receive a lawsuit than you are, but this is only an economic reason, not a legal one. You are still a potential target. To flip this around, suppose Wal-Mart were using patent-infringing software (chosen because I'm reasonably sure they're larger than Novell). In this case, it would make more sense for a patent holder to sue Wal-Mart, as they could (potentially) get more money from Wal-Mart than from Novell. To use to a physical metaphor, say I buy these special receding screws from MiguelCo Construction Supplies, and I build numerous houses/buildings with said receding screws (since MiguelCo's receding screws are cheaper, and work with more types of material), if further down the line its discovered that MiguelCo's receding screws are really a take-off on GatesCorp's design (which are far more expensive, and only work in redwood indigenous to the pacific northwest), legally, how can I even be included in any sort of litigation? Say it again: Patent law is fun! :-( If GatesCorp had something personally against you, they could sue you, and MiguelCo couldn't stop it. The only way MiguelCo would get involved is if you had a contract stipulating that they would protect you if MiguelCo's product was the target of a lawsuit. Which is basically a patent protection umbrella, which (suprise!) Novell and many others introduced in 2003/2004 when SCO brought the issue up. So you can get this additional patent protection, but only if MiguelCo offers it. If they don't, you're on your own. This also requires that you have a *contract* with MiguelCo stipulating this -- MiguelCo can't protect SomeRandomCompany that they have no business relationship with, even if they'd otherwise really like to do so. All I did was build something that uses legitimate (to the best of my knowledge) tools and materials? Predict doom as much as you want about a Novell/Microsoft partnership, but how does their IP somehow damn my products that base off of theirs? Say it with me: Patent Law is Fun! - Jon P.S. I am not a lawyer, but I've paid far too much attention to patents than is healthy. P.P.S. I'm going to go off and cry now. Software Patents really are insane... ___ Mono-list maillist - Mono-list@lists.ximian.com http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/mono-list
