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.NET, C-sharp, and Mono

Revision as of 10:09, 23 January 2010 by 85.131.23.217 (talk) (Avoiding Moonlight: additional info on html5)

Mono and Moonlight are free software packages developed with help from Microsoft. Questions of their legal safety exist because both packages use ideas on which Microsoft holds patents. Microsoft has given limited reassurances, but they are far from complete.

Mono

What is it?

Mono is an implementation of the C# programming language and the Common Language Infrastucture as described by ECMA-334 / ISO/IEC 23270 and ECMA-335 / ISO/IEC 23271.

What reassurances has Microsoft offered?

The ECMA-334 and ECMA-335 are covered by the Microsoft Open Specification Promise and the Microsoft Community Promise.[1]

Avoiding Mono

Moonlight

What is it?

Moonlight is primarily a web-browser plugin which provides animation and interactivity features which can be used to develop web applications.

What reassurances has Microsoft offered?

In 2007, Microsoft published a "Covenant to Downstream Recipients of Moonlight".[2] A new promise was published in December 2009,[3] but it was criticised as being no improvement on the previous promise. The new promise also specifically excludes distributors from any patent protection.[4]

Avoiding Moonlight

Many features of HTML 5.0 have been designed to provide functionality which is offered by Moonlight. Here's some good info on HTML5.

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

References