[taneq]

I didn't say C# was released after this time, I said Microsoft is a different beast now. They've made a significant swing towards open source and embracing the OSS community. Back in 2005 they still very much thought they ruled the world and could get away with anything.

[jdmichal]

Your opinion on 2005 Microsoft is great and all, but I still don't see its application to this exact conversation. From 2006 and on, anyone could implement a C# compiler and runtime from the ECMA standard with absolutely no barriers from Microsoft. This was the result of a process that started in 2000, a few months after the official release of the language.

[onli]

I think it is relevant. The Microsoft of that time (and it is debatable how much that changed) is not one company on which you'd rely on for a cooperation in such a project. There is no telling which tricks MS might have used to make money out of it – the same way Oracle's API copyright bullshit was a trick to make money. Don't forget that Microsoft uses patents to extort a share of many android phones sold, see http://uk.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-licen.... I thought that had stopped by now, but that article is from april…

[zamalek]

> Microsoft uses patents

So does Google, so does Apple and so does Samsung. If you don't protect your rights they will be taken away. The mobile market is in a state of mutually assured destruction. The fault lies with our broken patent system and all the players in that market: not Microsoft alone.