Re: [DotGNU]Re: the .NET API patent issue

[Marcus]

It seems that someone has labored long to bring forth a gnat.


On Friday 10 October 2003 7:26 pm, Rhys Weatherley wrote:
> On Friday 10 October 2003 08:48 pm, Marcus wrote:
> > So US citizens are not welcome to assist to Pnet?
>
> Certainly they are.  There are plenty of things that are outside the scope
> of patents or potential patents.  All of ECMA, for a start.  The
> non-Winforms GUI toolkits (Qt#, Gtk#, Xsharp, etc).  The C compiler and its
> support routines.  JVM backends.  And much, much, more.
>
> I feel that it is best that DotGNU take a two-pronged approach to patent
> avoidance.
>
> The first prong is to build all of the MS API's, using stock-standard,
> non-tricky algorithms.  This is needed for compatibility and for migrating
> Windows programmers away from dependence upon Microsoft's .NET
> implementation.
>
> During this, all major features will be marked up with #if's in the code. 
> The #if's are primarily for stripping the size of the system down for
> embedded platforms.  But they are also useful should Microsoft take issue
> with some feature - the #if's will tell us exactly what code to remove upon
> reception of a cease-and-desist.
>
> The second prong is to develop completely different ways of doing similar
> things.  e.g. DGEE instead of ASP.NET, MACS instead of Passport, Qt#/Gtk#
> instead of Winforms, etc.  Any core functionality that DotGNU requires
> should be rooted in ECMA-only API's (e.g. Xsharp works just fine in
> ECMA_COMPAT mode because it avoids non-ECMA API's).
>
> Norbert's message primarily refers to the second prong, but some people
> seem to think that we should cease the first prong.  We shouldn't.  Absent
> a cease and desist letter, we should keep moving along, making contingency
> plans but otherwise not letting Microsoft scare us.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Rhys.
>
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