News: .NET framework source code available soon...

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

I'm sure the net will be buzzing with this news fairly soon, but just
in case anyone hasn't seen it yet:

Microsoft are going to make the source code for the .NET framework
(parts of it, including the BCL, ASP.NET and LINQ) available both for
viewing and debugging into.

I won't go into all the details here, as they're covered on Scott
Guthrie's blog:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...ng-the-source-
code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx
Any comments?

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
If replying to the group, please do not mail me too

[Mads Bondo Dydensborg]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:

>Peter Duniho wrote:

>>>That is correct. If you merely create _similar_ source code with an
identical purpose you're fine, though.
Not according to Mads, and that's the point I'm disputing.

I do not recall writing anything about that, really.

Sorry. That's the inference I take from your statement regarding Mono's
policy combined with your agreement with the policy.

No problem. I was probably not expressing myself very clearly. This happens.

If you believe that there is no legal risk in creating similar source
code as long as you haven't actually copied the .NET sources, then why
is it that you think Mono's policy has merit?

A quite relevant question, that deserves a much better answer than I can
possibly hope to formulate given the time I can spend, and so on. I will
try to sketch some of the reasons

Much of it has to do with the fact that much open source efforts are heavily
dependent on perception. E.g. the company I work for (we work with what is
commonly referred to as Intelectual Property, I believe) has a strategy on
the it side that was originally (+20 years back) formed around Unix. There
were no such thing as Windows those days. These days, its Linux, as our
codebase can run on Linux, whereas porting it to Windows would require many
many years, better spend elsewhere. There are good sound business reasons
for this, including the compentences of the staff, etc.

Now, as an experiment, we are undertaking a rewrite/development of a product
in .net. This is because we have business cases for both running it on
Linux (in-house) and on Windows (outsourcing, client run). It has been
decided to try and do this in .net, with the majority of development taking
place under Linux/Mono, al the while ensuring that deployment on Windows is
still possible. (Btw: Originally this product was acquired from another
company, and it was Windows only, mostly written in VB)

The perception of Mono is relevant here. If a major player were to accuse
Mono of copyright infringement, naturally my company would have to consider
the long term availability of Mono as a platform. You and I may consider
this absurd, but laywers and people responsible for the money and the
decisions, do not. The issue of copyright is very important to my company,
given the area we do business in. Monos policy of a clean room
implementation (thanks Arne for pointing out the reference) is an insurance
for companies like mine, that the effort spent developing with Mono, and
fixing bugs in Mono, is well spent.

I hope you understand. The issues that we may mockingly refer to as Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) is real in many policymakers eyes. E.g. many
companies has been harmed by the SCO case, even though it was clear to most
of us, that they never had a case. Monos policy is all part of trying to
protect the effort against accusations that may be groundless, but
nevertheless quite harmful.

Legal action can be quite harmful, even though it has no solid ground to
stand on. This is a good reason to try to protect oneself against it. As
you may recall, several initiatives have been started to try and fulfill
this goal:

http://www.informationweek.com/showA...leID=197000797

And, this is the kind of considerations companies take:
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=10914

Hope that clears my viewpoint, which I believed is shared by many, up.

Regards,

Mads

--
Med venlig hilsen/Regards

Systemudvikler/Systemsdeveloper cand.scient.dat, Ph.d., Mads Bondo
Dydensborg
Dansk BiblioteksCenter A/S, Tempovej 7-11, 2750 Ballerup, Tlf. [phone]
34

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

What's the relevance of what MS says, other than what's in their
reference license? That license has all what MS has to say about
it.

So, where in the license then does it say "if you have used the .NET
source code in any way, you may not work on Mono"?

It's not in MS' license, it's in Mono's policy for submitters of
patches and code.

If you don't agree with it, don't accept it and don't look at the

code.

However if you DO accept it and DO look at the code, you're doomed
to do things on projects you might have been a great help for.

Why? What in the license says that you're "doomed"?

you can't reasonably work on these projects because you personally
embed the risk of getting other peoples code in the main trunk.

I once
looked at the rotor code (very first beta version), actually only
the compiler. However by doing that, I accepted the license it came
with and I can't work on mono stuff now.

Why? What was in the Rotor code's license under which you viewed the
code that specifically precludes you from working on Mono?

Peter, please... it's not in rotor's license, it's in the policy for
mono (and other high profile open source projects). It's simple math,
really.

But without any evidence that suggests Microsoft's own position is
that looking at .NET code causes a person to be legally
unqualified to work on Mono, it's just rumor-mongering and not
necessarily by people who normally view Microsoft in a positive
light anyway.

It's precaution: if you haven't looked at the code, you can't
literaly copy/paste the code: you HAVE TO write it yourself.

I understand the precaution. But that's VERY different from saying
you are prohibited from performing the work otherwise.

Erm... I assume you're doing software development, ok? So you
understand logic.

If codebase A is open for you to look at, but A is also commercial, so
you can only look, and you want to work on codebase B, where B is doing
something similar to (parts of) A, and B is open source, isn't it so
that by accepting the license for A, you automatically can be ASSUMED
your work on B is copied from A?

Yes, we are all nice guys/gals who don't do anything bad ever,

...

till reality kicks in.

Changes are that
the code will likely look different from what MS wrote as you have
to solve problems yourself. It's not about 'MS is evil', it's about
protecting the Mono code from lawsuits which they could have
prevented.

Sure, it is about "MS is evil". It's only because of this fear of
Microsoft that the Mono project is taking such a defensive stance.
If they made the assumption that Microsoft is benevolent and would
only take legal where there's a valid legal case, then they would
have no problem with Mono developers using the .NET source code in
situations unrelated to Mono.

And I think that fear is justified. Not because they think MS is evil.
Only stupids think in that kind of terms. MS is a big company, and
every big company has only one thing on their mind: money. So they do
things for getting that money, to keep the company going. I.o.w.:
simply business.

If mono opens the door to do .NET development and deployment on Linux
on a big scale, MS will kill it. It's not strange, it's logical from
MS' pov, simply because it would otherwise hurt their business.

From Mono's Pov, it's then logical to take precautions.
Mono is just an example though. Every framework developer out there
has to be very cautious. Not only with MS' code but with all code you
read on the net: even if it's just a tiny class, if the license of that
piece of code isn't clear, don't use it and don't look at the code.
Simple.

If you think that's retarted, fine. If a company C sues my company
because I made a mistake and copied C's code into our codebase, I'm
responsible and you won't care nor get hurt by it. Also, if you don't
care about the concerns I and others put forward, more power to you and
go ahead with what you wanted to do. But don't come here and whine
about what the consequenses did to you IF the future becomes less
bright than you might have anticipated.

[...]
because you've access to code which you could copy/paste or learn
how it works inside and reproduce it for mono, which would make
Mono look like it has copy/pasted MS code and thus that it's open
for a lawsuit.

But that concern only applies to someone who is specifically using
the .NET source code as a reference for Mono (whether copying
directly or using it as a guide). That in no way eliminates the
possibility to use the .NET source code in other contexts.

mono is an example. Any o/r mapper and control vendor out there has to
be very careful (and there are other frameworks which replace parts of
the .net code base). You still don't see what the consequences can be
if an o/r mapper vendor makes SqlServer irrelevant w.r.t Linq ? If the
o/r mapper vendor included parts of the sourcecode, or wrote code very
very similar to it and has accepted that license, wouldn't it be easy
for MS to simply make a few calls to kill off that threat?

What I don't get is that according to some people looking at other
peoples sourcecode is a 'right' and has no consequences. It HAS
consequences.

[...]

Working on Mono, you are intentionally trying to reproduce the
behavior of the .NET Framework, and even without inspecting the
compiled .NET Framework code it would not be surprising if you
should happen to on occasion implement things in the same way
they are implemented in .NET. But how are you to prove to
Microsoft in those cases that you didn't actually use their
compiled code as a reference?

it's THEIR job to proof you DID copy it.

True. But the question of whether a license was accepted has nothing
to do with that.

of course it has. If you have accepted the license, they have an easy
job to proof you had every oppertunity to copy. If you DIDN'T accept
the license, you didn't have the oppertunity and they have a harder job
proving you copied code.

If you have never accepted
the license of this sourcecode, you have never been able to look at
it.

That's a false conclusion. Accepting the license has nothing to do
with whether a person has seen the .NET source code. I can accept
the license and never look at the source code, and I can look at the
source code without ever accepting the license. The two are
completely unrelated.

How can you look at the sourcecode without accepting the license? No,
reflector doesn't count, that's not the sourcecode.

[...]

They don't have to show you their source code for them to file
legal action on the basis of a copyright violation.

the sco case proofs that they have to. It would also be silly to
claim copyright infrigment without proof that someone indeed copied
your work, aint it? ;)

No, it wouldn't be silly at all. It's easy enough to duplicate the
code from a compiled implementation. You don't need the source code
to violate the copyright rules.

How can I copy SOURCE without access to the source? If I have only a
compiled form, I can reverse engineer it, and re-use that, which is
allowed in most countries, IF you don't have access to the code and IF
you need that code to do your own work (e.g. an internal class is
needed for making your code work with the framework. There are examples
of that, for example design time databinding in ASP.NET with datasource
controls.).

[...]
Anyone may sue you one day, it depends if they have a case or not.
What you and I can do is protect ourselves from losing these
lawsuits. There's no protection possible against a lawsuit being
filed against you, though you can protect yourself (at least try)
against losing these because the other has a strong case against
you.

No doubt. I have said as much. But that's not the issue here. The
question is whether the Mono group has a legal requirement to protect
themselves in this way, and my assertion is that they do not.

So they, and other open source projects who have the same rules, have
a skewed vision on reality? Does 'SCO' ring a bell to you? :)

They may feel it makes sense to play it safe in this way, but that's
not the same as Microsoft imposing this requirement on them.

See above.

That's also why the license this code comes with is evil and
everyone looking at sourcecode on the internet should REALIZE that
you only should do so if you understand the license the code is
distributed under.

Again, the license is irrelevant to the copyright issues, and calling
the license "evil" is just the usual Microsoft demonizing that takes
place in the open-source community.

I can call it whatever I want to call it. I find this license evil, as
it has sideeffects which aren't visible at first. You for example don't
understand the side effects ;). I've explained them again above.

[...]
Also, if MS does something bad to YOU, you can't win a lawsuit
against them if they have a strong case against you in another area.

That's an absurd statement. The courts do not decide separate issues
together. If you have a case against Microsoft with respect to one
thing, it doesn't matter what other case they may have against you in
some unrelated area.

I wasn't talking about courts, I was talking about threats. Has it
ever occured to you WHY companies file so many patent requests? That's
right, to protect THEMSELVES against companies who threat them with a
lawsuit: if that happens they can threat them back with "if you sue,
we'll sue you over this other thing".

It's simply business. A hobby programmer: shouldn't have any worries.
A professional framework developer: watch out.

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Cor Ligthert[MVP] wrote:

Frans,

AFAIK do the laws of the EU not allow explicitily forbidding of
reverse enginering.

However it is not so difficult to do that implecitely.

No, reverse engineering is permitted, IF it's the only way to solve a
problem which is necessary to be solved for your business. So to be
able to write a datasourcecontrol for ASP.NET for example, one has to
reverse engineer existing controls to be able to do so, as the docs
don't describe what to do. (example).

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

Peter Duniho wrote:

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:

Peter Duniho wrote:
I guess the one thing missing from this announcement is how
this all relates to a project like Mono. It would be pretty
awesome if Microsoft would allow the source code to be used for
cross-platform implementations of .NET, and could dramatically
decrease the lag of non-Windows .NET implementations behind the
Windows releases.
>
The current consensus is, that if you look at this code provided
by MS, you will no longer be able to contribute to Mono.

But what does Microsoft say? A lot of people, especially those who
are more inclined to work with open-source and especially with
Linux, have a tendency to view Microsoft as a monolithic,
power-hungry, lawyer-driven company. And as with all great myths,
there's probably at least some grains of truth behind that view.

But without any evidence that suggests Microsoft's own position is
that looking at .NET code causes a person to be legally
unqualified to work on Mono, it's just rumor-mongering and not
necessarily by people who normally view Microsoft in a positive
light anyway.

Unless MS put it in writing in a legal binding form, then Mono and
other projects would still be worried.

I can be solved.

Before Java went GPL there was a Java Research License which
allows it.

http://java.net/jrl.csp

Quote:

***
B. Residual Rights. If You examine the Technology after accepting
this License and remember anything about it later, You are not
"tainted" in a way that would prevent You from creating or
contributing to an independent implementation, but this License grants
You no rights to Sun's copyrights or patents for use in such an
implementation.
***

And FAQ answer from same link:

***
18. Does the JRL prevent me from being able to create an independent
open source implementation of the licensed technology?

The JRL is not a tainting license and includes an express Òresidual
knowledgeÓ clause which says you're not contaminated by things you
happen to remember after examining the licensed technology. The JRL
allows you to use the source code for the purpose of JRL-related
activities but does not prohibit you from working on an independent
implementation of the technology afterwards. Obviously, if your
intention is to create an ÒindependentÓ implementation of the
technology then it is inappropriate to actively study JRL source
while working on such an implementation. It is appropriate, however,
to allow some decent interval of time (e.g. two weeks) to elapse
between working on a project that involves looking at some JRL source
code and working on a project that involves creating an independent
implementation of the same technology. ***

MS could do something similar.

Excellent idea. I've put up a post with your remark, perhaps they'll
read it. :)

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:

Peter Duniho wrote:

That is correct. If you merely create similar source code with
an identical purpose you're fine, though.
Not according to Mads, and that's the point I'm disputing.

I do not recall writing anything about that, really.

Sorry. That's the inference I take from your statement regarding
Mono's policy combined with your agreement with the policy.

If you believe that there is no legal risk in creating similar source
code as long as you haven't actually copied the .NET sources, then
why is it that you think Mono's policy has merit?

If you write a class C and it looks very similar to a class D which is
in the .NET framework sourcecode and you submit it to Mono and you
really wrote it yourself, and you swear on a dear relative's grave that
you wrote it yourself, no one gives a damn if you say you wrote it
yourself or not, it's about how it LOOKS LIKE: it looks very very
similar, so someone simply looking at the code of class C can conclude
that it's copied from D and altered a bit to make it look different to
avoid being caught.

That's the point. So to AVOID that as MUCH AS POSSIBLE, a writer of
class C can't have access to D. Period. Only THEN you can be sure the
person who submits C is indeed the author of C, or at least be pretty
sure, and you've done your best to avoid copy-cats. If you DON'T have
that policy, you can never be as sure as when you DO have the policy.

So that's why they have the policy (and other open source projects
have also the same policy.)

For example Microsoft has the policy that no employee unless
specifically granted, is allowed to look (!) at GPL-ed software, to
AVOID that the GPL-ed code might end up in MS' products which would
make them vulnerable.

Gee... that sounds familiar... isn't that what's been argued here... ?
:)

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

Chris Shepherd wrote:

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

>I have never seen VS being unstable and I would consider it
a lot better for developing C# code than Emacs.

For C# code, obviously, I don't think anyone was arguing it was superior
for writing .NET stuff...

For more generic things like C++, PHP, Java, there are better editors
that run on both Windows and Linux.

In my view VS and Emacs is not even in the same category.

An IDE is specialized for writing code in one or more
languages.

A general purpose editor is designed for editing all types
of text files.

I use a general purpose editor a lot (JEdit not Emacs but that
does not matter), because there are plenty of stuff that is
better for.

But writing C# or Java is not one of them.

Arne

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

Chris Nahr wrote:

On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:50:23 -0400, Arne Vajhøj <ar**@vajhoej.dk>
wrote:

>I am saying that I have more confidence in the that MS and SUN
makes correct legal decisions based on the best legal advice
they can buy than on poorly formulated opinions from a mr. nobody
on usenet.

Last I checked Microsoft and Sun weren't charities providing public
lawyer services. They write up licenses to increase their profits and
for no other purpose, and they're quite happy to include unenforceable
items on the off chance that someone is intimidated by them.

Try read what is posted in this thread.

It seems obvious that you did not read about the JRL.

You may choose to throw around childish insults at other posters but
all the while you're spamming your own "poorly formulated opinions"
all over this thread. Maybe your time would be better spent to inform
yourself about the actual legal situation, which requires surprisingly
little research.

I think the childish part is to insist on being right even when
presented with plenty of evidence that industry practice is not
supporting it.

Arne

[Peter Duniho]

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:

[...]
Hope that clears my viewpoint, which I believed is shared by many, up.

Yes, thank you for the clarification. IMHO, it still supports my
contention that in this scenario, it's really the lawyers making
business for themselves.

But you're right...if you follow the food-chain all the way up,
ultimately you have to satisfy your customers -- those putting food on
your table -- that you are "safe".

A sad situation, but I see the truth in it.

Pete

[Chris Shepherd]

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

Chris Shepherd wrote:

>Arne Vajhøj wrote:

>>I have never seen VS being unstable and I would consider it
a lot better for developing C# code than Emacs.

For C# code, obviously, I don't think anyone was arguing it was
superior for writing .NET stuff...

For more generic things like C++, PHP, Java, there are better editors
that run on both Windows and Linux.

In my view VS and Emacs is not even in the same category.

Sorry for not being clear. I wasn't disagreeing about Emacs, nor do I
really care about Emacs. I was simply saying there are better editors
out there that run on both platforms (ie: NetBeans, Eclipse).

The rest of your response is really irrelevant to my point. I don't know
why you'd even make the original comparison of Emacs to VS if you
understand they're vastly different types of software.
Chris.

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

Chris Shepherd wrote:

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

>Chris Shepherd wrote:

>>Arne Vajhøj wrote:
I have never seen VS being unstable and I would consider it
a lot better for developing C# code than Emacs.

For C# code, obviously, I don't think anyone was arguing it was
superior for writing .NET stuff...

For more generic things like C++, PHP, Java, there are better editors
that run on both Windows and Linux.

In my view VS and Emacs is not even in the same category.

Sorry for not being clear. I wasn't disagreeing about Emacs, nor do I
really care about Emacs. I was simply saying there are better editors
out there that run on both platforms (ie: NetBeans, Eclipse).

The rest of your response is really irrelevant to my point. I don't know
why you'd even make the original comparison of Emacs to VS if you
understand they're vastly different types of software.

Try read the thread from start.

The subthread started by someone else writing:

# faster and more
#stable development environments (emacs vs Visual Studio Team Edition)

I am just commenting on a comparison someone else brought up.

Arne

[Peter Duniho]

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

>> What's the relevance of what MS says, other than what's in their
reference license? That license has all what MS has to say about
it.

So, where in the license then does it say "if you have used the .NET
source code in any way, you may not work on Mono"?

It's not in MS' license, it's in Mono's policy for submitters of
patches and code.

So you agree with me then. Microsoft has made no such imposition, and
it's not at all about "that license has all what MS Has to say about it".

[...]
you can't reasonably work on these projects because you personally
embed the risk of getting other peoples code in the main trunk.

Why? If you don't copy the code, there's no risk.

Peter, please... it's not in rotor's license, it's in the policy for
mono (and other high profile open source projects). It's simple math,
really.

I know. That's been my point all along.

Erm... I assume you're doing software development, ok? So you
understand logic.

If codebase A is open for you to look at, but A is also commercial, so
you can only look, and you want to work on codebase B, where B is doing
something similar to (parts of) A, and B is open source, isn't it so
that by accepting the license for A, you automatically can be ASSUMED
your work on B is copied from A?

How can you try to make an argument based on logic, and yet still
introduce an assumption?

In any case, it can be assumed that your work on B is copied from A
whether or not you ever looked at A or ever even had access to it. What
you actually did in no way affects what assumptions someone might make
about you.

[...]
If mono opens the door to do .NET development and deployment on Linux
on a big scale, MS will kill it. It's not strange, it's logical from
MS' pov, simply because it would otherwise hurt their business.

That's just not true. I sure hope no one at Microsoft is dumb enough to
think it is.

Having .NET on Linux, Mac, etc. can only help Microsoft. Can you
imagine the sort of advantages they would have should they wind up
controlling the primary development platforms not only on Windows, but
also on Linux and Mac?

You might argue some lost OS license sales to those platforms but a)
they aren't going to be losing any significant number of sales to Linux
any time soon and that's not going to change until Linux is actually
easy to use, and b) they aren't likely to lose sales to Mac
either...even though Apple has dramatically improved their market share,
it's done so in the hardware business; people are buying more Macs
because they have Intel hardware now, and that means they are still
buying Windows licenses. Apple is making the OS market _larger_ rather
than taking actual sales away from Microsoft.

But even beyond all that, Microsoft's not solely dependent on OS
licenses. They have other ways to leverage their investments, and
dominating the development platforms on all OS's is a great way to do that.

Mono isn't a threat at all, any more than Wine was/is a thread. It's a
potential boon.

[...]

>> it's THEIR job to proof you DID copy it.

True. But the question of whether a license was accepted has nothing
to do with that.

of course it has. If you have accepted the license, they have an easy
job to proof you had every oppertunity to copy. If you DIDN'T accept
the license, you didn't have the oppertunity and they have a harder job
proving you copied code.

No, they don't. Your acceptance of the license isn't going to be used
as proof of you copying; a comparison of the code will be.

>>If you have never accepted
the license of this sourcecode, you have never been able to look at
it.

That's a false conclusion. Accepting the license has nothing to do
with whether a person has seen the .NET source code. I can accept
the license and never look at the source code, and I can look at the
source code without ever accepting the license. The two are
completely unrelated.

How can you look at the sourcecode without accepting the license? No,
reflector doesn't count, that's not the sourcecode.

Really? You really believe that there's no way to obtain the source
code unless you accept Microsoft's license and get it directly from them?

I'm sorry...as long as you continue to hold that belief, there is no
hope for this discussion. And no, I'm not talking about Reflector. I'm
talking about the actual source code Microsoft is providing.

[...]

>> the sco case proofs that they have to. It would also be silly to
claim copyright infrigment without proof that someone indeed copied
your work, aint it? ;)

No, it wouldn't be silly at all. It's easy enough to duplicate the
code from a compiled implementation. You don't need the source code
to violate the copyright rules.

How can I copy SOURCE without access to the source?

First, please re-read what you're replying to. In the text you quoted I
am _not_ talking about copying the source. But you don't need to copy
the source to be in violation of copyright. And you don't need the
source code to copy the implementation.

That said, even though your question isn't relevant to the text you
quoted, it's easy enough to answer: you can't copy source without access
to source, but assuming that your only access to the source is through
Microsoft after accepting their license is silly. Once Microsoft has
released the source to anyone, it is trivially available whether you've
accepted a license or not, and even if they don't release it that
doesn't preclude the source from somehow being leaked from within Microsoft.

If I have only a
compiled form, I can reverse engineer it, and re-use that, which is
allowed in most countries, IF you don't have access to the code and IF
you need that code to do your own work

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in worldwide copyright law.
However, I doubt that any country that is part of the global IP treaties
allows for actual copying of an implementation, with or without source code.

Yes, you can reverse engineer to allow your own original code to
correctly operate with existing code. But that's a much different
situation than what I am talking about and what is relevant in this
discussion.

[...]

>No doubt. I have said as much. But that's not the issue here. The
question is whether the Mono group has a legal requirement to protect
themselves in this way, and my assertion is that they do not.

So they, and other open source projects who have the same rules, have
a skewed vision on reality? Does 'SCO' ring a bell to you? :)

The question is whether Microsoft's imposed a legal requirement. A
projects "vision on reality", skewed or otherwise, is irrelevant.

That said, I would be surprised if SCO would have gotten as far as they
had without heavy backing from deep pockets, and it still blew up in
their face. I wouldn't call the SCO trial a very good example of
successful litigation on the part of the plaintiff.

[...]
I can call it whatever I want to call it. I find this license evil, as
it has sideeffects which aren't visible at first. You for example don't
understand the side effects ;). I've explained them again above.

Frankly, you should consider the possibility that rather than me being a
complete moron and not being able to understand the "side effects" as
you describe them, that I do in fact understand what you're writing
about and still don't find the license to be "evil".

>>[...]
Also, if MS does something bad to YOU, you can't win a lawsuit
against them if they have a strong case against you in another area.

That's an absurd statement. The courts do not decide separate issues
together. If you have a case against Microsoft with respect to one
thing, it doesn't matter what other case they may have against you in
some unrelated area.

I wasn't talking about courts, I was talking about threats.

You wrote "you can't win a lawsuit". The only thing that can stop you
from winning a lawsuit is the courts. So if you weren't talking about
the courts, why did you write something that is only relevant with
respect to the courts?

Has it
ever occured to you WHY companies file so many patent requests?

Please, stop being so condescending. You are making huge, wild
assumptions about what I do or do not know, and what my own personal
experience is (hint: not only has the question of why companies file so
many patent requests occurred to me, in my own career I have been smack
in the middle of the issue).

That's
right, to protect THEMSELVES against companies who threat them with a
lawsuit: if that happens they can threat them back with "if you sue,
we'll sue you over this other thing".

That in no way blocks your own success with a particular legal action.

Pete

[Jon Harrop]

Chris Shepherd wrote:

Arne Vajhøj wrote:

>In my view VS and Emacs is not even in the same category.

Sorry for not being clear. I wasn't disagreeing about Emacs, nor do I
really care about Emacs. I was simply saying there are better editors
out there that run on both platforms (ie: NetBeans, Eclipse).

For some things, yes. For other things (like OCaml), no.

--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

What's the relevance of what MS says, other than what's in
their reference license? That license has all what MS has to
say about it.
So, where in the license then does it say "if you have used the
.NET source code in any way, you may not work on Mono"?

It's not in MS' license, it's in Mono's policy for submitters of
patches and code.

So you agree with me then. Microsoft has made no such imposition,
and it's not at all about "that license has all what MS Has to say
about it".

You make all kinds of remarks and then I agree with you? where? I just
said that the CONSEQUENCES of the MS licenses are to be understood
well, and aren't something you can just ignore. What license MS puts
their stuff, it's their responsibility. What we've to deal with, are
the consequences of the license they pick.

[...]
you can't reasonably work on these projects because you personally
embed the risk of getting other peoples code in the main trunk.

Why? If you don't copy the code, there's no risk.

So why does MS forbid their employees to look at GPL-ed code?

Erm... I assume you're doing software development, ok? So you
understand logic.

If codebase A is open for you to look at, but A is also
commercial, so you can only look, and you want to work on codebase
B, where B is doing something similar to (parts of) A, and B is
open source, isn't it so that by accepting the license for A, you
automatically can be ASSUMED your work on B is copied from A?

How can you try to make an argument based on logic, and yet still
introduce an assumption?

In any case, it can be assumed that your work on B is copied from A
whether or not you ever looked at A or ever even had access to it.
What you actually did in no way affects what assumptions someone
might make about you.

If you say it can be assumed, how can I copy something if you can't
proof I had access? Isn't it so that closed source code isn't
accessable to people outside the company?

[...]
If mono opens the door to do .NET development and deployment on
Linux on a big scale, MS will kill it. It's not strange, it's
logical from MS' pov, simply because it would otherwise hurt their
business.

That's just not true. I sure hope no one at Microsoft is dumb enough
to think it is.

You live under rocks apparently. Some time ago, MS put their
heavyweight onto testdriven.net because it was usable in a free vs.net
SKU. Now, you're telling me MS isn't going to do anything less lame
than that? You're dreaming. They'll kill off any company who gets in
their way, as any major corp will, because that's today's level of
business. If you think MS is a different company than any other big
corp, you're naive.

Having .NET on Linux, Mac, etc. can only help Microsoft. Can you
imagine the sort of advantages they would have should they wind up
controlling the primary development platforms not only on Windows,
but also on Linux and Mac?

Last time I checked, they're making money by selling OS licenses. If
..NET runs on Linux, they don't sell a windows license if the user picks
up OpenSuse. That's the point.

You might argue some lost OS license sales to those platforms but a)
they aren't going to be losing any significant number of sales to
Linux any time soon and that's not going to change until Linux is
actually easy to use,

hehehe, you really have no clue what the real world looks like, do you
;). If you think .NET is of any relevance in the overall software
world, you're mistaken. Even in the narrow scope of webapps, .net has
no real significance and that will only become less with RoR and
friends. This isn't about desktops, mind you.

and b) they aren't likely to lose sales to Mac
either...even though Apple has dramatically improved their market
share, it's done so in the hardware business; people are buying more
Macs because they have Intel hardware now, and that means they are
still buying Windows licenses. Apple is making the OS market larger
rather than taking actual sales away from Microsoft.

how is buying an intel mac equal to buying an ms license?

But even beyond all that, Microsoft's not solely dependent on OS
licenses. They have other ways to leverage their investments, and
dominating the development platforms on all OS's is a great way to do
that.

Peter, C# (and also Java) have no real significance in the big world
of software development. So how MS can dominate development platforms
is beyond me. (hint: most code on the planet is still cobol (around
30%), C and C++ each 10% and the rest is divided among 500+ languages. )

[...]

it's THEIR job to proof you DID copy it.
True. But the question of whether a license was accepted has
nothing to do with that.

of course it has. If you have accepted the license, they have an
easy job to proof you had every oppertunity to copy. If you DIDN'T
accept the license, you didn't have the oppertunity and they have a
harder job proving you copied code.

No, they don't. Your acceptance of the license isn't going to be
used as proof of you copying; a comparison of the code will be.

Ah, and because you say so, it's true?

If you have never accepted
the license of this sourcecode, you have never been able to
look at it.
That's a false conclusion. Accepting the license has nothing to
do with whether a person has seen the .NET source code. I can
accept the license and never look at the source code, and I can
look at the source code without ever accepting the license. The
two are completely unrelated.

How can you look at the sourcecode without accepting the license?
No, reflector doesn't count, that's not the sourcecode.

Really? You really believe that there's no way to obtain the source
code unless you accept Microsoft's license and get it directly from
them?

I can also sign their special license as an MVP and look at their code
but I also don't do that for the same reason. How can I otherwise look
at their code, Peter?

I'm sorry...as long as you continue to hold that belief, there is no
hope for this discussion. And no, I'm not talking about Reflector.
I'm talking about the actual source code Microsoft is providing.

Yeah, and where is it? Or do you mean Rotor's sourcecode?

the sco case proofs that they have to. It would also be silly
to claim copyright infrigment without proof that someone indeed
copied your work, aint it? ;)
No, it wouldn't be silly at all. It's easy enough to duplicate
the code from a compiled implementation. You don't need the
source code to violate the copyright rules.

How can I copy SOURCE without access to the source?

First, please re-read what you're replying to. In the text you
quoted I am not talking about copying the source. But you don't need
to copy the source to be in violation of copyright. And you don't
need the source code to copy the implementation.

That said, even though your question isn't relevant to the text you
quoted, it's easy enough to answer: you can't copy source without
access to source, but assuming that your only access to the source is
through Microsoft after accepting their license is silly. Once
Microsoft has released the source to anyone, it is trivially
available whether you've accepted a license or not, and even if they
don't release it that doesn't preclude the source from somehow being
leaked from within Microsoft.

How can it freely be available if no-one is allowed to COPY it? So how
can anyone copy the sourcecode no-one-is-allowed-to-copy and place it
somewhere I could access it?

That would mean that the code is already freely available out there
because there are MVPs who have signed the license to peek into MS'
code. But you can't point me to a site where the .NET source is
available for download, can you?

So how can you ASSUME I copied anything if there's no proof I can
access it without accepting a license I didn't accept?

[...]
I can call it whatever I want to call it. I find this license
evil, as it has sideeffects which aren't visible at first. You for
example don't understand the side effects ;). I've explained them
again above.

Frankly, you should consider the possibility that rather than me
being a complete moron and not being able to understand the "side
effects" as you describe them, that I do in fact understand what
you're writing about and still don't find the license to be "evil".

THen, why bother replying and just go ahead and look at the code? Oh,
Peter, btw, please answer me this: why aren't MS employees allowed to
peek at GPLed code? Why are most big ISV's forcing their employees to
just work on their own code and not peek into other people's codebases?
Because they're overly paranoid and have no clue?

No, Peter, because they want to avoid a risk, a risk which you are
willing to take without thinking things through. A risk you're waving
away as irrelevant.

Well, if you want to do that, I don't mind, it's your life. I just
want to make clear what the side effects are, you think they're
irrelevant, and with you a lot of people think the same. Good for you
and them, but I do hope neither of you all gets into trouble later on.
Oh, that's right, you won't get into trouble, because MS is a nice
company and won't do bad things to you and what I and others have
argued about is so irrelevant and meaningless, why bother, right?

:).

[...]
Also, if MS does something bad to YOU, you can't win a lawsuit
against them if they have a strong case against you in another
area.
That's an absurd statement. The courts do not decide separate
issues together. If you have a case against Microsoft with
respect to one thing, it doesn't matter what other case they may
have against you in some unrelated area.

I wasn't talking about courts, I was talking about threats.

You wrote "you can't win a lawsuit". The only thing that can stop
you from winning a lawsuit is the courts. So if you weren't talking
about the courts, why did you write something that is only relevant
with respect to the courts?

Peter, ever read about how big corps fight their lawsuits? If they
have something against YOU, will YOU take the risk of losing everything
you own and beyond for that? I won't.

That's
right, to protect THEMSELVES against companies who threat them with
a lawsuit: if that happens they can threat them back with "if you
sue, we'll sue you over this other thing".

That in no way blocks your own success with a particular legal action.

Sweet dreams, Peter :)

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

> you can't reasonably work on these projects because you personally
embed the risk of getting other peoples code in the main trunk.

Why? If you don't copy the code, there's no risk.

I posted some links about clean room implementation techniques.

Did you not read them ?

Or did you just assume that you know better than those companies
spending millions on making sure the developers has never seen
any of the source for what they are reimplementing ?

Arne

PS: There are another good story at http://oldcomputers.net/compaqi.html

[Jon Harrop]

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

>Having .NET on Linux, Mac, etc. can only help Microsoft. Can you
imagine the sort of advantages they would have should they wind up
controlling the primary development platforms not only on Windows,
but also on Linux and Mac?

Last time I checked, they're making money by selling OS licenses.

and Office.

Peter, C# (and also Java) have no real significance in the big world
of software development. So how MS can dominate development platforms
is beyond me. (hint: most code on the planet is still cobol (around
30%), C and C++ each 10% and the rest is divided among 500+ languages. )

Where on Earth did you get those statistics? I can't believe that...

--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Jon Harrop wrote:

Frans Bouma [C# MVP] wrote:

Peter, C# (and also Java) have no real significance in the big world
of software development. So how MS can dominate development
platforms is beyond me. (hint: most code on the planet is still
cobol (around 30%), C and C++ each 10% and the rest is divided
among 500+ languages. )

Where on Earth did you get those statistics? I can't believe that...

University. (a friend of mine is now in his masters, he told me about
it, I didn't believe it either, but it's apparently the result of
scientific research.) After thinking about it a bit, it's also logical.
Even imagine how much C code you're using every day... and imagine how
many big systems there are, based on cobol.

Do a wild guess how many lines of C there are in an MRI scanner. (7-10
million). Or a wafer stepper (10 million). that's such a truckload of
code, and if you don't realize this, you can't even possibly imagine
how big the pile of code out there really is. :)

FB
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Mads Bondo Dydensborg]

Peter Duniho wrote:

Mads Bondo Dydensborg wrote:

>[...]
Hope that clears my viewpoint, which I believed is shared by many, up.

Yes, thank you for the clarification. IMHO, it still supports my
contention that in this scenario, it's really the lawyers making
business for themselves.

There is much truth in that statement.

>
But you're right...if you follow the food-chain all the way up,
ultimately you have to satisfy your customers -- those putting food on
your table -- that you are "safe".

And, I might add, our stockholders too.

>
A sad situation, but I see the truth in it.

Thanks,

Regards,

Mads

--
Med venlig hilsen/Regards

Systemudvikler/Systemsdeveloper cand.scient.dat, Ph.d., Mads Bondo
Dydensborg
Dansk BiblioteksCenter A/S, Tempovej 7-11, 2750 Ballerup, Tlf. [phone]
34