Since the Microsoft patent agreement only covers patents required to use the ECMA bits of .Net, and they don’t include any of the GUI aspects, any such patent wouldn’t be covered by the agreement.

This makes taking on the Linux kernel a major risk. Linux Kernel does not have to depend on OIN to defend itself. Remember SCO case numbers of interested parties with weapons that came out at the start of that.

With the Linux Kernel you can be sure Linux foundation will be there to back you up in any case of patent attack. With Mono will Novell be there to protect those who get attacked or will it just be lining up to sell licences.

Freetype has an agreement with apple over the BCI code. Notice it don’t build by default you have to pass flag to enable it. If you read Freetype docs you will find where to get a patent license to use there restricted sections.

People are not worried about Freetype patent issue its there in black and white even with a date when the patents will expire and the feature can be enabled for everyone from then on.

Basically Mono does not have all the patent agreements it needs or have enough patents and money to scare attackers away. Linux kernel has enough patents and money that any attacker better be sure there patents are valid because they will fight or code patent usage out of existance.

Now this is not a breach of GPL. Since the rights are transferable. Now shipping under a licence IBM has not approved you basically did not get the rights in the first place.

There is no legal way to back out of the way IBM does it. There are deeper legal inspection of the CP is need to find out if it is or is not GPL compadible.

MS might be able to back out on Mono by claiming particular areas don’t follow spec so they can sue. CP is not as solid as what IBM gives.

OOXML is under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.

But I did not expect less from you Rui, always with the half-truths and the lying by omissions that worked so well for you in your anti OOXML campaign.

Noted. I had forgotten the example of alleged patent infringement in the Linux kernel.

So distribution of code seems to be a separate legal issue aside from whether that code infringes on patents. Even FreeType, then, has subpixel-filtering and BCI code that is distributed, though not in binary form, and is patent-encumbered.

I think I understand. Patent infringement itself is not inherently a contradiction to the GPL.

Fedora’s case against the Community Promise then lies merely in the desire to reduce litigation vulnerability as far as possible, and not actually any licensing problem. And anxiety of taking on that risk is up to each individual distribution, and has been alleviated somewhat by this Promise.