OSNews tries to ignite a controversy with Microsoft Puts OSS Roadblock on Avalon and Indigo. “Novell’s Mono open-source group had been successful in porting Microsoft’s .Net Framework, but Microsoft is insisting its Avalon and Indigo intellectual property rights requires that any attempt to produce open-source versions of these two will require licensing.”
I’m surprised this is news. Microsoft was pretty clear, I thought, in making their common runtime environment a standard (that’s what Mono has been building, if I understand correctly), and pushing C# out to a standards body for more support. But to suppose that meant Microsoft was giving away the whole tool chain, or even all of the layers of software needed to generate a Windows-style app on a competing platform, was näive at best. Microsoft is not out to lead by example, set industry standards and then beat its competition by having the best product.
I’d welcome hearing from other people who were expecting something else.