[Opensim-dev] Mono considered harmful

[James Stallings II]

Consider that thousands of products by other companies (who likely did not
explicitly license the FAT filesystem either) are deployed with or on FAT
file systems.
MP3 players by the score, (including Apple's iPODs which label the FAT file
system the 'Compatibility Filesystem'), Apple's computers that can format
FAT volumes, god only knows how many digital cameras, external USB disks,
memory sticks, etc...

Typically, such a suit is only brought when there are damages; given that
there was no particular technical advantage gained in choosing the FAT
filesystem, and, indeed, a technical advantage might have been obtained in
choosing one of the *dozens* of other filesystems out there, I think it
would be difficult to demonstrate any real damages to microsoft; whats more,
if it were looked into deeply, microsoft could likely be shown to not have
excercised due diligence in protecting it's rights under patent law in the
broader sense wrt a FAT patent (who else are they bringing suit against over
shipping the FAT filesystem unlicensed?).

It just looks excessively predatory to me; the FAT is isnt exactly rocket
science. And if they make that much fuss over *the FAT filesystem* it stands
to reason that they might come after those using their more valuable assets
without license, wouldn't you think?

Cheers
James

On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nebadon Izumi <nebadon2025 at gmail.com> wrote:

> personally the only wolf in sheeps clothing i see in this case is TomTom
> for not aquiring permission to use software, sounds to me like they tried to
> steal something that wasn't not theirs and sell it without aquiring
> permission, so if Microsoft is a wolf in sheeps clothing for protecting is
> own creations, then I guess thats just how things are, personally I dont see
> anything that microsoft did wrong or is even un-ethical in this situation,
> quite the opposite, in my eyes, TomTom were the one with questionable
> ethics, you cant just steal from microsoft because everyone hates them and
> they are a huge entity, if we start using these kind of tactics successfully
> againts large heartless corporations where does it end? the answer is it
> wouldnt if microsoft lost this case it would be open game on all protected
> code, and while i love and am a huge promoter of open source, I am a bigger
> fan of protecting the laws of the land, and as much as everyone would love
> to see microsoft burn, in this case the law was on their side and thats just
> the facts, if you are to survive in the open source world you have to thick
> skin and expect the companies that your "Open" software is competing with
> their Retail software that keeps their employees paid to be quite defensive
> when you intrude on their creations.
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:51 AM, James Stallings II <
> james.stallings at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Nope :) not saying that at all; just saying beware of wolves dressed like
>> sheep.
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Nebadon Izumi <nebadon2025 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> are you trying to say that C# is not a wise choice because TomTom broke
>>> copyright and patent laws and Microsoft called them out on it?  and why on
>>> earth would a company using Linux Kernel select a copy written Microsoft
>>> creation for their choice of file system when there are tons of free
>>> alternatives? personally i think TomTom is 100% at fault for thier own
>>> choices, and this really has nothing to do with C# or this project at all,
>>> seems more likely to me this is just an attempt to start a flame war over
>>> microsoft since this has absolutly nothing to do with technological
>>> decisions.
>>>
>>> Nebadon
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> What was the original reason for the decision to pick .Net/C#/Mono?
>>>>
>>>> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090401152339514
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
>>>> ______________________________________________________________
>>>> ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
>>>> 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>>>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>>>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nebadon Izumi @ http://osgrid.org
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ===================================
>> http://osgrid.org
>> http://del.icio.us/SPQR
>> http://twitter.com/jstallings2
>> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/770/a49
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Opensim-dev mailing list
>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Nebadon Izumi @ http://osgrid.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Opensim-dev mailing list
> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>
>


-- 
===================================
http://osgrid.org
http://del.icio.us/SPQR
http://twitter.com/jstallings2
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/770/a49
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://opensimulator.org/pipermail/opensim-dev/attachments/20090403/efc37343/attachment-0001.html>