ECMA / ISO

Another person has to open his mouth and blab about how Microsoft isn't really opening up the specs... I get tired of this nonsense from people who should know better...
"CNet reported on the ISO "seal of approval" on Microsoft's C# and CLI submissions.  I looked into the ECMA and ISO "standards", and it's quite deceiving.  Unlike many other consortsia-standards such as ANSI C or even ECMA-262 (ECMAScript), these are merely published references that CANNOT be used for commercial products or implementations.  These last two paragraphs from the news.com piece tell it all:

On top of an ISO seal of approval, companies can also look at the published specifications of C# and the CLI to better understand the underlying products once they purchase them, Goodhew said.

The academic community benefits perhaps more from the published specifications to do computer science research than do companies, he added.

While it's great to have visibility into the architecture, this is hardly an open standard given the tight commercial restrictions imposed with it."

[Jeremy Allaire]

Jeremy, you seem to be confusing the ROTOR source with the specifications. Organizations cannot use the shared source ROTOR code (C# compiler and CLI implementation), but they are free to implement their own compilers, etc. (such as Ximian is doing with Mono). The C# spec (ISO) specifically states that it is intended to allow other implementations:

Conformance is of interest to the following audiences:
· Those designing, implementing, or maintaining C# implementations.
· Governmental or commercial entities wishing to procure C# implementations.
· Testing organizations wishing to provide a C# conformance test suite.
· Programmers wishing to port code from one C# implementation to another.
· Educators wishing to teach Standard C#.
· Authors wanting to write about Standard C#.

(Section 2: Conformance)

Microsoft's own site highlights what Ximian is doing with Mono (their C#/CLI implementation):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/deicazainterview.asp

A good discussion can be found here:

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2887217,00.html

"According to Herman [Microsoft's IP director], third parties will have to enter into a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license agreement with Microsoft. "But," says Herman, "while RAND sometimes means there could be a financial obligation, [Microsoft] …will be offering a conventional non-royalty non-fee RAND license. We've always made that clear to anyone who has asked." In other words, there will be no financial obligation."

What MS is doing is a lot better than what Macromedia did with it's "OpenSource" SWF SDK or what any project under GPL is doing ("we won't charge you, but you can't make any money off this").

[1] MSDN: ECMA and ISO/IEC C# and Common Language Infrastructure Standards
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ecma/

4 Comments

  • Yes, and thanks to the gpl, Microsoft will drop prices. Competition is good.

  • Well, I really wish someone would just come out and say officially and legally that Mono is okay. Pretty much everyone that deals with Mono is waiting for the jaws to clamp shut and the lawsuits to start. Especially after the patents MS applied for. The interview from 2001 is a little too old to be relevant.


    It seems like MS is still deciding whether to shut Mono down and won't say anything until they've made the decision.

  • I get tired of seeing people claim the GPL says you can't make money off covered software, or not sell covered software. The GPL says nothing of the sort. The GPL says you can't *prevent others* from sharing the software, its source code, or modifications to it, and that all modifications to it must also be under the GPL.





    RedHat makes money selling GPL'd software. Cygnus was making money selling GPL'd software before they were bought by RedHat. ArsDigita was making money selling GPL'd software before they brought in those outside VCs.

  • Chris hits it head on. Free as in Freedom, not as in no cost.

Comments have been disabled for this content.