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I thought this was the best bit:

>Mono implements an international standard albeit one from a convicted monopolist. If this is a problem, why do people use C, the standard from convicted monopolist AT&T? Mono implements an improved, Free replacement for a proprietary offering. If this is a problem, why do people use GNU (which provided an improved, Free replacement for proprietary UNIX)?



Mono implements a standard from a convicted monopolist who has a stake in dominating the market the standard affects.

AT&T was barred by consent decree from entering the computer industry. Unix and C were, by the standards of the day, practically given away, and AT&T couldn't use the control over these they had to unfairly outcompete other companies.


I never realized AT&T was in a smear campaign against the use of competing C implementations.

Mono implements a _subset_ of a proprietary offering that is Free (as in speech and beer). GNU is pretty much a greatly enhanced superset of AT&T UNIX.


at&t did at one time try to paint BSD as illegal. They also sued which Microsoft has not done yet.


That was a funny one. In the end AT&T was suing the BSD folks for using the technology the BSD folks developed and that AT&T was using without proper acknowledgement. I can only imagine what happened at the board meeting when this was disclosed.

But I get your point. Since then, AT&T got a lot more civilized.

Microsoft never was.


> GNU is pretty much a greatly enhanced superset of AT&T UNIX.

I know many people that would question your claim that GNU 'enhanced' the work of Bell Labs, more like the opposite, but then they were certainly not alone in that.




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