Re: [DotGNU]Re: another volunteer

[steehf]

ok. lets see what i can come up with.
gotta read some more dotgnu specs. i'm not really into it right now.
& thanks for your introduction

best regards,
stefan

---

On Sat, 4 Aug 2001 11:09:10 +0200
Norbert Bollow <address@hidden> wrote:

> Stefan <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > i'd like to participate dotgnu too. i can't say how much time
> > i'll be able to spend working with you guys when school's
> > starting again in september, but... here i am.
> 
> I this case I propose you contribute by "inventing".  You know,
> one of the weapons that Microsoft is planning to use against
> Free Software is patents.  One of the best defenses against patents is
> having "prior art".  This essential means that we must be able to
> prove that everything we need was already "invented" before Microsoft
> claims to "invent" it in order to be granted a patent on the
> "invention".
> 
> Existing computer programs can be used as "prior art".  If someone has
> already implemented an idea in a computer program, and later Microsoft
> pretends to "invent" this idea and is granted a patent on it, then the
> patent can be challenged in court and declared invalid.
> 
> However there are other ways of creating "prior art" besides writing
> a working computer program.  Writing a technical "whitepaper", making
> a flowchart, or writing high-level pseudo-code, all that works just as
> well.  From the legal perspective, I think it doesn't matter too much
> if the various whitepapers, flowcharts and high-level pseudo code
> pseudo-programs don't fit together well - what matters it that all
> the ideas that we need and that Microsoft might try to get patents on
> are already "invented" before Microsoft "invents" them.
> 
> > my main interest lies in OS development
> 
> This is great.  From a technical perspective, the main thrust of
> DotGNU is that it should be an operating system for distributed
> computing.
> 
> You know, Microsoft's .NET is for the network what DOS is for the PC.
> It's sort-of-useful in the sense that you can use it to execute
> programs, but it is not a real operating system.
> 
> I believe that DotGNU should be a real operating system for
> distributed computing, like GNU/Linux is a real operating system for
> the PC.
> 
> However it has not yet been really fleshed out what it means to be
> a "real operating system for a distributed, virtual computer".
> 
> If you could work on "inventing" that in some detail (detailed enough
> that we have anough "prior art" to work around any patents that
> Microsoft might get), I believe that would be a great contribution.
> 
> Greetings, Norbert.
> 
> -- 
> A member of FreeDevelopers and the DotGNU Core Team   http://dotgnu.org
> Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet  (near Zurich, Switzerland)
> Tel +41 1 972 20 59      Fax +41 1 972 20 69      http://thinkcoach.com
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> 
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