"One Bullet is never enough" Paper

[Kragen Sitaker]

"Patrick" <postmisc at yahoo.com.au> writes:
> Submitting the language to a standards body and opening it up to other
> implementors is hardly a clever way to lock programmers into a specific
> vendor.

It's an excellent way to get programmers to use it.  ECMA does not
require that the standardized technology be patent-free, and Microsoft
has declared their intention to make it not patent-free.  The ultimate
result will be that the patents will issue in a couple of years, at
which point you will be able to compete with Microsoft's .NET by
producing a compatible implementation as long as Microsoft finds it
convenient to allow you to do so, or as long as you don't need to sell
in the US.  This is the clever way to lock programmers into a specific
vendor.