[PLUG-Devel] Hi all

[Tim Heuer]

Okay, I'll be clear that I'm a technologist first :-).  I do want to say that I re-read the archives and saw Alan's post about my note to him being a PR move.  I respectfully disagree.  I was just being informative to something that I thought might be interesting to the broader Linux community.  Clearly to some (the following post after Alan's initial note) it is of no interest.  I want to respect those, and if this is just noise on the list, please let me know and I'll be happy to take offline conversations.  I joined at the request of at least 3 people on this list to participate in a discussion, but I want to be respectful of noise on lists (I'm on about 85 different ones so I feel the pain when there is too much of it).

Here we go...

Clouds of doubt:
- Is Mono, the project on which the Moonlight will be built, "tainted" by MS patents?
- As a developer and distributor of something using Moonlight, how do I know I am not sitting on a patent time bomb?
        [timheuer]: to be clear, the agreement we announced the other day is for Moonlight, not Mono.  Patent coverage for Mono is covered under the PCA (http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/patent_agreement.mspx).  The mono functionality necessary to enable the use of Moonlight is covered under pertinent MSFT patent claims under the moonlight agreement announced.

- If at some point the relationship between Microsoft and Novell goes sour, will Mono be left in the cold with patents hanging over it's head?
        [timheuer]: as for units of Moonlight shipped while agreements are in force, users are covered for their ongoing use of the product under the pertinent patent claims.

I find it highly "convenient" that a party outside of Microsoft is available and tapped to do the non-Microsoft platform implementation.
        [timheuer]: why?  Why not applaud and support the efforts that seem to be accepted in the linux/mono developer community.  Would any implementation Microsoft provided be any better?  Is it convenient?  I guess, but I think it is great.  We'll continue to improve and innovate on Silverlight and the agreement with Novell also highlights their commitment to do the same with Moonlight (they've committed to shipping a v1.1 compat w/in 9 months of us shipping the next version of Silverlight).  The direction here is a positive and cooperative one.

More insidious would be to never give Moonlight the full spec to begin with so that it never rises above an "almost right" implementation that can't fully catch on or has a reputation for "bugginess"
        [timheuer]: Miguel has commented on the whole full spec debate (http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=288641&cid=20481353).  He's gotten what he needs through raw specs and cooperative support with the appropriate people.  I think his team is satisfied, and if they aren't, they will let us know and I'm confident that division (run by Scott Guthrie) will work with him to ensure he has understandings he needs for his team.

As a developer, I find the above possibilities difficult to live with.
Based on past behavior of Microsoft (Office for Mac, IE for Mac, incompatibilities from one version of their own software to the next, Windows for Pen Computing (remember that one?), etc.), I see the likelihood of a bad scenario.
        [timheuer]: let's be realistic here.  First, we are continuing to develop office for the mac, so I'm not sure what the issue is there.  Mac Office 2008 is in beta right now.  With regard to IE, hey, let's be real, the innovation/dev didn't just stop on IE for mac, it stopped on IE for windows!  It took Firefox to kick that team in the arse and make some changes.  By that time the mac platform had moved on to safari as a standard and IE on the mac was far behind.  I personally NEVER liked the IE implementation on the mac and clearly neither did a lot of customers...so in that case, I think the right decision is being made.  I'm not aware of IE development for mac (not to say that there isn't, I'm just not aware of it, but I'd be surprised if there was).  Incompatibilities in software: welcome to software...again, let's be realistic here.  Software vendors regardless of platform have this problem and make business choices based on the needs of their majority customers.  OSX itself completely abandoned OS9 users with a "well, you have to buy the upgrade" messaging that left some with a foul taste for Apple.  But for apple, for their platform to progress and innovate they clearly felt that break was necessary.  That happens with some Microsoft software too I think.  Is the version of Outlook 97 going to be parity with Outlook 2007, a product 10 years later?  Maybe not.  Innovation happened and decisions are made to support better features and the demands of customers.  I'm really just not sure that is a fair argument as it could be applied to any commercial software vendor, not just Microsoft.  Look at PHP even -- PHP5 broke some major things with PHP4...and it was necessary to advance the platform.  I'm not familiar with Windows for Pen Computing, but did ask a colleague about it and he said that platform was crap to begin with and it wasn't continued because the market was clear that it shouldn't.

tim heuer | (602) 405-4567 | im: tim at timheuer.com | blog: http://timheuer.com/blog/

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-devel-bounces at lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us [mailto:plug-devel-bounces at lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Alan Dayley
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 5:52 PM
To: List for Linux development and software engineering discussions.
Subject: Re: [PLUG-Devel] Hi all

Tim,

I'd like to repeat, with some editing, some of my discussion that I provided to you privately.

The biggest concern right now is patents.  The patent protections offered in the Microsoft-Novell agreement are very restrictive on the developer.  And they don't apply to anyone who is not a paying Novell customer anyway.

Clouds of doubt:
- Is Mono, the project on which the Moonlight will be built, "tainted"
by MS patents?
- As a developer and distributor of something using Moonlight, how do I know I am not sitting on a patent time bomb?
- If at some point the relationship between Microsoft and Novell goes sour, will Mono be left in the cold with patents hanging over it's head?

I find it highly "convenient" that a party outside of Microsoft is available and tapped to do the non-Microsoft platform implementation.
Following a variation of the well known "embrace, extend and extinguish"
pattern, Microsoft can:
- Help Novell/Mono create Moonlight
- Let web applications based on it become ubiquitous, badly hurting Adobe
- Cut off support to Moonlight
- Extend Silverlight making Moonlight old and irrelevant

More insidious would be to never give Moonlight the full spec to begin with so that it never rises above an "almost right" implementation that can't fully catch on or has a reputation for "bugginess"

As a developer, I find the above possibilities difficult to live with.
Based on past behavior of Microsoft (Office for Mac, IE for Mac, incompatibilities from one version of their own software to the next, Windows for Pen Computing (remember that one?), etc.), I see the likelihood of a bad scenario.

Alan