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Video: Stallman on DRM, Patents and C #
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| Stallman also explains comments he made in his keynote speech regarding the
| use of Microsoft's C # and why the GNU project incorporate their own version
| of C # in the portable dotnet technology.
|
| In another of our videos of the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, Richard Stallman
| declares his position on DRM, patents and C #.
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http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Video-Stallman-on-DRM-Patents-and-C
Recent:
Stallman says "Don't depend on Mono"
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| The debate over Mono has simmered ever since the Mono C# implementation was
| announced. The suspicion has been that Microsoft have patents that are
| relevant to C# and are just waiting for Linux developers to become
| comfortable with Mono so they can pull the rug out from under Linux. Mono's
| defenders point out that Mono itself is an implementation of the ECMA
| standard for C# and that the patents that are usually referred to belong to
| the higher .Net layers which run on C# based systems, but aren't implemented
| as a core part of Mono. Microsoft made a statement in 2003 saying the patents
| which are relevant to the ECMA/ISO standard are "royalty-free and otherwise
| RAND"; a somewhat confusing statement without saying which technology falls
| under the royalty free and which is under RAND terms (Reasonable And Non
| Discriminatory).
|
| In some ways though, the worries about Mono are of the Mono project's own
| making. By having the project implement both the ECMA/ISO covered elements
| and the more obviously patented ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms
| components, the lines have been blurred for many as to what is or is not
| patent safe. Stallman's statement says that all C# implementations are
| potentially unsafe from a patent attack from Microsoft.
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http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/141254
Linux is being tamed.
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| Assuming Mono gets shoved into Linux and gains acceptance, then Linux
| is "tamed." Even without the patent threat, even if C# is some sort
| of "standard," Microsoft still defines .NET and everything about it. From
| past behavior it's quite evident that they know how to walk the fine line of
| bending "standards" to their will and marketplace benefit. Mono gives
| Microsoft power over a major Linux Desktop API, and the ability to make sure
| it's always the "second platform", always a day late and a dollar short.
|
| The other interesting thing about Mono is that nobody is asking for it.
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http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-06-27-009-39-OP-DB-MS-0004
Ubuntu tech board plays down Mono IP concerns
http://osdir.com/Article10305.phtml
Hands off the Gimp
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| How to I scale an image in f-spot ? If there’s a way, I have not been able to
| find it (same for red eyes). How do I annotate an image (putting text
| somewhere) ?
|
| Yet people ask “Gimp is cool but.. should it belong to LiveCD?” I’ll give you
| a better question: what should belong to the LiveCD ?
|
| Removing GIMP from the LiveCd fully defeats the showing off purpouse of the
| LiveCd and lives you without any handy tool to perform basic manipulation on
| images. Now, it can be just me, but I can’t find anything useful in that
| regard inside Jaunty’s f-spot.
`----
http://www.stefanoforenza.com/hands-off-the-gimp/
The elusive, royalty-free patent licence for Mono
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| How difficult or easy is it to obtain one of the much-touted "royalty-free,
| reasonable and non-discriminatory" licences for Microsoft patents that are
| part of a technology like Mono?
|
| Judging by the frequency with which references are made to such licences by
| those who back Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza's bid to create an open
| source clone of Microsoft's .NET development environment, it's surprising
| that no-one has ever ventured to test this claim.
|
| The idea of trying to find out what was involved arose after reading a nearly
| nine-month old, well-written post defending the use of Mono and mocking its
| detractors. The author, Jo Shields, is a Debian developer and works for
| Oxford University.
|
| [...]
|
| He replied two days later, pointing out, "Ecma does not have anything to do
| with possible licensing of .NET. But Microsoft is one of our members, so I
| have asked them whom to contact there – if anything is needed, what I just do
| not know."
|
| Dr Sebestyn added: "My contact at Microsoft said that you should contact
| Peggy Moloney there, who would be able to help you."
|
| I wrote to Ms Moloney on April 28, asking for the same information: "I
| understand that the terms of the licences to the patents which Microsoft
| holds on the .NET development platform permit people to obtain a
| royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence to use them. I would
| be grateful if you let me know exactly how one obtains such a licence."
|
| I also asked her about the variance in the terms for the licensing of
| Moonlight, a clone of Microsoft's Silverlight, using which the company hopes
| to capture the market that is dominated by Adobe's Flash. De Icaza is behind
| this project as well.
|
|
| [...]
|
| There's a been a deafening silence since then. There the matter stands after
| nearly a month. You would think that's a decent period for anyone to think
| things through and respond - if the intention of doing so exists.
|
| To me, it looks this licence is as real as the unicorn. Or maybe Santa Claus.
| I think Mono fans need to think of a fresh defence when people talk about the
| dangers of patent suits arising over this technology. The licence talk has
| worn more than a little thin.
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http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25215/1090/
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