Re: About GUI and lisps...

MarkHaniford@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
goose wrote:

Rob Thorpe wrote:
<snipped>

Using a cross platform GUI library like Tk or GTk seems less bother.

They also have the advantage of not having a sword hanging
over their heads. Last I checked, Mono was under enough
suspicion of patent-encumberences that Microsoft could make a
reasonable lawsuit (they won't win, but that wouldn't be the
point) and bog down the effort and any software that had it as
a dependency in court for a few years.

When enough free software has Mono as a dependency, it
is possible that Microsoft stalls their effort by pointing
out patents it owns that Mono "might" be violating.


That whole thing has been playing out for a few years now. RedHat and
Sun (obviously) have always pushed Java, but Mono has gotten a lot of
interest because of Ximian(Novell) and that it's actually open source
and Java isn't. Yeah, you can worry about getting hit by a bus
everyday, but most (if not all) of the Gnome bits are under ECMA
anyway.

Which does not keep mono safe from patent violations (not
that it actually has any, it only has the suspicion
of patent violations).

MS has known about Mono for all these years and done nothing
(if not tacitly supported by MS .NET developers).

Well, they knew about flash devices using fat filesystems
for years, but they waited until it was a defacto standard
before proceeding with patenting and attempting to collect
royalties on it.

If they've attempted this once, I do not see what is
stopping them from trying again.

Once again, I must say that although they may not win
any lawsuit, that would not be the point.

Really, MS is a corporate, you must assume that they
will do what is best for *them*, not for *you*.

goose,
.