[Core]

According to Peter Galli (Microsoft), Microsoft will be applying the Community Promise patenting to C# (ECMA 334) and CLI (ECMA 335). Many of you might ask - what community promise is? It is a patenting technology, by which:

Microsoft said:

Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation, to the extent it conforms to one of the Covered Specifications, and is compliant with all of the required parts of the mandatory provisions of that specification

Basically, it says that developers soon will be able to implement their own versions of C# and CLI, as long as those will abide Microsoft's technology specifications.

Scott Guthrie mentioned recently that:

Scott Guthrie said:

The Community Promise is an excellent vehicle and, in this situation, ensures the best balance of interoperability and flexibility for developers.

The time will show, but I guess we will soon see a more solid support for C# and CLI on various platforms.

[Amadeus]

When you delve into the specifications a little deeper, there are some limits are not readily apparent on the surface. For example, database interaction, web serving, and Windows Forms will not be covered under the Community Promise.

Also worth noting that Scott Guthrie has been on the MS payroll in the past (not sure about currently).

All that to say this is an important step, and one that many people are happy about. Good for MS...well deserved kudos. However, I would still recommend that folks do their homework on what they are releasing and whether all parts of it will be covered.

[PsychoCoder]

Scott Guthrie is the Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Platform Team, so yes he's on their payroll.