Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that it has cast on the system, Novell vice-president and Microsoft MVP, Miguel de Icaza, is quoted as telling the website, Software Development Times, recently.
Strangely, however, the article, headlined "Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities", which contains these quotes, written by one of SD Times senior editors, David Worthington, has disappeared off the site. It shows up in a search but only yields a 404 when one clicks on the link that comes up in the search.
The article is, however, still available in Google's cache.
Worthington says De Icaza told the publication that .NET's focus on Windows had come at the expense of opportunities for Microsoft, and that its desire to guard its intellectual property was an impediment on the platform.
The Novell vice-president was quoted as saying: "Unlike the Java world that is blossoming with dozens of vibrant Java Virtual Machine implementations, the .NET world has suffered by this meme spread by [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer] that they would come after people that do not license patents from them."
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A professional journalist with decades of experience, Sam for nine years used DOS and then Windows, which led him to start experimenting with GNU/Linux in 1998. Since then he has written widely about the use of both free and open source software, and the people behind the code. His personal blog is titled Irregular Expression.