11.07.08
Request for Mono Licence from Microsoft: Ascending to Nicos Tsilas
Microsoft Licensing seems to be refusing to respond to our previous polite requests for a Mono licence [1, 2], so we are left with no choice but to contact individual people. See the previous requests for context. Here is the latest.
From: Roy Schestowitz
To: ntsilas at microsoft.com
Date: Wed, Nov 7, 2008
Subject: Request for a written license for ECMA 334 implementationDear Nicos Tsilas,
I tried contacting iplg@microsoft.com a couple of times over the past month, but was unable to receive a reply. I am therefore expressing my determination to receive a licence for commercial distribution of Mono, in accordance with your terms presented by Bob Muglia:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2060750,00.asp“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an
implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by
Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell
is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to
Novell customers.”According to several legal analyses, Mono is not safe for those who are
not Novell customers to use. I would therefore like to purchase a licence.Best regards,
Roy Schestowitz
Funnily enough, the man who interviewed Bob Muglia in the article above became a Microsoft employee. Incestuous press, eh?
Let’s hope for a prompt reply. We advise other people who are concerned about Mono (i.e. people who use Mono and are not Novell customers) to do likewise. Here are the contact details.
Nicos L. Tsilas Senior Director IP & Interoperability Policy Government and Industry Affairs ntsilas at microsoft.com Tel (425) 705-8476 Fax (425) 708-5204 Microsoft Corp One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052-6399
This is the person with whom you get in touch for ‘permission’ to make programs play nice with each other, for a fee (paid to Microsoft).
As a side note, the author of the OSP will come to the workshop on patents on in the middle of this month. It takes place in Europe where software patents are not legal (but Microsoft is breaking the rules anyway, using loopholes). █
“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway”.”
–Marshall Phelps, Microsoft
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Penny Lane said,
November 9, 2008 at 8:00 am
Who is “the author of the OSP”?
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 9, 2008 at 8:22 am
I’d have to ask someone.
Penny Lane said,
November 9, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I’m keen to know.