RE: .NET CLR? was no subject

["Brad Merrill" <address@hidden>]

I can't comment on patents or such, really from lack of knowledge.  If you want to use the CLR, it is freely available.  If you want to implement an ECMA compliant CLI implementation, my understanding is that the details of the licensing are in the ECMA docs.

FYI, we are releasing a FreeBSD version of the CLI soon, here is a description of the BOF this was announced at: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2002/03/04/rotor.html 

/Brad

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Fulgham [mailto:brent.fulgham@xpsystems.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 1:54 PM
To: Brad Merrill; Eric Kidd; ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
Subject: RE: .NET CLR? was no subject


Hi Brad,

> By contrast, the Python implementation was a very naïve
> initial implementation by it's author's own admission.  
> 
> The Jscript folks did do a reasonable performing
> implementation on the CLR, so it is possible, although I 
> think we can make it better or at least easier in the future.
> /Brad
> 

Thanks for the insight -- and I'm hopeful that Eric will post a
brief review of his (soon-to-be-received) book for our collective
benefit.

Kragen's post highlights a concern I have held for some time on
the subject of the CLR -- strategic use of software patents to
cripple any non-Microsoft .NET/CLR implementations.

Can you say anything to ally our (perhaps unfounded) fears?  I
know I'd be a lot more interested in using the CLR for projects
if I felt confident that the work would not end up landing me
in some kind of patent dispute.

Regards,

-Brent