D vs VM-based platforms

[James Dennett]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, of course it makes sense. Let's abstract away the underlying
>> hardware
>> & operating system and lock people on this new highly portable platform
>> with IP stuff, patents and DMCA. Problem solved.
> 
> To be fair, Ms does target ARM as well, for its handheld devices. Though
> I wonder if those devices have a full .NET VM.  In any case,
> pre-generating binary code is obviously more efficient, so why not use
> it for a VM?  The original point of .NET is a COM replacement anyway,
> regardless of how things have been spun.
> 
>> It's interesting to see how much effort MS has put into .NET platform and
>> language research (well, except Java for some unknown reason :P)
>> lately. I
>> don't think they will be giving it all away for free.
> 
> They have to.  The CLI is an open standard.  They may choose to sell
> their implementation of it of course, but they can't forbid anyone from
> implementing a compatible VM.

Being a standard doesn't mean that it's free of patent
problems, so it may not be freely implementable.  Patents
*do* allow you a monopoly on devices implementing their
claims.  (Though recent US Supreme Court rulings might
help to reduce the lunacy that has been ruling the
software industry of late.)

-- James