Python vs .Net

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters mertz at gnosis.cx
Mon Jan 6 14:49:02 EST 2003


"Etienne Charland" <mystery at golden.net> wrote previously:
|Some work is done to make .NET cross-platform: MONO
|www.go-mono.com

I do hope everyone knows that it is not a question of IF, but WHEN,
Microsoft will decide to sue MONO out of existence.

The whole thing smells of usual MS dirty tricks... they have released
just enough of API details to allow Ximian to waste time on implementing
MONO.  But MS has kept many parts of the API as trade-secrets, and has
wrapped much of the documented API in patents.

MS's goal here is to maintain an official face that ".NET" is
cross-platform and open.  But as soon as MONO has any success at all, MS
*will* pour millions of dollars into lawyers to claim patent violations
in MONO (and maybe trademark, copyright, trade-secret) issues.  Those
lawyers *will* get restraining orders against the distribution of MONO,
effectively killing the project.  Of course semi-underground copies of
MONO will still exist, but not any effective development project; and if
Ximian isn't outright bankrupted, they might eventually win in court,
many years after the APIs have gone somewhere else altogether.

Yours, Lulu (a soothsayer)...

--
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