Testing Mono's compatibility

[der.hans]

Am 13. Sep, 2006 schwätzte Josh Coffman so:

>>   Does it matter who is 'sponsoring' Mono?  The
>> entire project is
>> entirely dependent on the edicts of Microsoft Inc.
>>
>
> What is the history of the Java VM? I personally don't
> know. Did Sun implement it for every platform? Or were
> some platform VM's implemented outside of Sun?

Sun wrote the original VM and ported it to a couple of OSen. Some other
vendors purchased licenses to the Sun VM and did ports themselves ( the
IBM port to GNU/Linux ).

Sun did allow people to view the VM license for no cost under an AT&T
style tainted license, which is how we got Blackdown. Sun did various
things to undermine the Blackdown effort including claiming they would
support the port and then not supporting it and then later claiming it as
their own...

Pertinent to Josh Z's point, I think, is that Java is now under the
control of a standards body and Sun no longer controls it. That means Sun
can't yank the rug out from under a Free Software group that implements
compilers and VMs for the Java language. I'm not sure Beans, etc. are
open standards.

The m$ languages are not standards and are controlled directly by m$.
Additionally, m$ holds certain patents on how these languages are
implemented.

As I understand it, implementation requires using those patents. As I
understand it, m$ has allowed use of those patents for implementing
certain things, but has in no uncertain terms *NOT* claimed that such use
is permanent and unrevocable.

In other words, m$ has many ways to suddenly yank the carpet out from
under the feet of people using MONO.

I'm not trying to convince you or anybody else one way or the other. Just
pointing out problems I see.

I might not correctly understand the situation. Until recently I did not
know that Java was under the control of a standards group that isn't
controlled by Sun.

ciao,

der.hans
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