Article of Gnome, Mono, Ubuntu and growing influence of Microsoft

[Matthew Garrett]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 06:21:17PM +0000, andy baxter wrote:

> Does anyone know what the patent situation actually is with mono - have 
> microsoft made the specifications irrevocably public domain (in which 
> case I guess it doesn't matter so much that mono is a MS based 
> language), or are they still holding certain rights over the technology 
> which they can use later?

It's quite likely that Microsoft hold patents that could be used against 
Mono, just like they hold patents that could be used against many other 
parts of Linux. The existence of the Open Innovation Network means that 
the legal threat is significantly reduced - any suit by Microsoft would 
result in a countersuit that could potentially block shipment of 
Windows, and that's going to be enough to make Microsoft very wary of 
doing anything patent related.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org