MSDN: Using the ECMA Standards: An Interview with Miguel de Icaza

Dare Obasanjo: There have been conflicting reports about Ximian's relationship with Microsoft. On one hand there are reports that seem to indicate that there may be licensing problems between the license that will govern .NET and the GPL. On the other hand there is an indication that some within Microsoft are enthusiastic about Mono. So exactly what is Ximian's current relationship with Microsoft and what will be done to ensure that Mono does not violate Microsoft's licenses on .NET if they turn out to be restrictive?

Miguel de Icaza: Well, for one we are writing everything from scratch.

We are trying to stay on the safe side regarding patents. That means that we implement things in a way that has been used in the past and we are not doing tremendously elaborate or efficient things in Mono yet. We are still very far from that. But just using existing technologies and techniques.

Dare Obasanjo: It has been pointed out that Sun retracted Java from standards processes at least twice, will the Mono project continue if .NET stops being an open standard for any reason?

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