That is their opinion. It doesn't mean that they are a Microsoft shill as you claimed.

The AC didn't say .NET would kill those languages, just make them less useful.

There is simply no shady language in the license that is going to affect Mono. If they ever decide to change Mono from an implementation of the .NET platform to something else (eg. JVM) whilst retaining Microsoft's code then they could be in trouble. But do really think for a second that they would change the focus of the project like that? Absolutely not.

And yet that is the main message of your post, that if you don't adhere to Microsoft's spec then they could sue. Well Mono is compliant with the licence, so they are not going to get sued.

So your response to me pointing out that Microsoft hasn't actually sued anyone for the last 13 years despite all the claims that they would is that Java is still bigger and that if you made something that was unlike Mono that you would get sued. How is that counter my claim that saying that using Mono will not get you sued?

Irrelevant. You have the ability to verify code from an open source project.

Thanks for calling me a young 'un. Nobody has done that to me in a very long time.

But I have to say that you sound like a leftover hippie from the 60s complaining that everyone who no longer believed in peace and free love had sold out, when in fact they had just grown up. Feel free to complain when Microsoft does something wrong. But after 13 years of predictions of a patent apocalypse, perhaps it is time to face the fact that they are not going to start suing the world for using Mono; especially when there has been cooperation between Mono and Microsoft during its development.

And it all boils down to this. You have no proof in the slightest that they are doing anything wrong or that they intend to. But that doesn't stop the pitchforks coming out because of a feud that dates back decades. Have they done anticompetitive things in the past? Sure. Have they ever turned to litigation after making a public patent promise? No.

Having an open source implementation of .NET and C# legitimises the platform as the standard for Microsoft. They are not going to just turn around and crush it only to suffer a huge PR backlash because they broke their word. And of course, any judge would throw out a claim of patent infringement precisely because they had made public promises about not suing.

That's really another type of FUD; that anyone who says something that isn't completely anti-Microsoft must be being paid to say it.

It has been 10 years since Mono was released and 13 years since .NET was released, and for the entire time there have been the predictions that Microsoft will start suing all and sundry for patent infringement. For that entire time it hasn't happened. For that entire time it has been complete FUD, whether you like it or not.

So what? None of that means that Microsoft is going to start suing you for using the Mono CLR and Framework. If you don't like their terms then don't add your own patented code to a .NET Foundation-owned project, but feel free to use Mono without any fear of being sued by Microsoft.

Wow, talk about FUD again. Bringing up ISIS is just a modern version of Godwin's law. And "some prefer to be able to verify the code themselves" is FUD because this is all about open source code released by Microsoft. Of course you can verify the code yourself. Or are you mixing up the completely unrelated non-OSS Windows code that you can't see. How is that relevant to this discussion?

Nobody has asked you to. This whole thread came about because someone said:

Nobody is going to expect to be able to play at 60fps using this service. If high frame rate is that important to you then obviously have to upgrade your computer and play locally. If, however, you are happy to play games that you could not otherwise hope to play at half that rate (or even less) without having to buy a whole new computer then OnLive could provide a useful service.

And yet by your own admission, DX9 is not the minimum requirement for all games. Therefore if you want to play a game for which you don't match the minimum requirement... Go on, guess what I'm going to say next! That's right, you could use a service like OnLive!

Here we go again. You think that just because it might not work for 100% of games' user interfaces then the service is useless. Once again, you don't have to aim for perfection, just something that is good enough. And my point was not how well it work would on those devices, just that it can work on those low-powered CPU/GPUs (and therefore will also work on low-powered PCs too).

Perhaps they want to be able to play in their living room without having to move their PC. Considering how often console gamers bring up this scenario, it seems to be a popular idea that PC games might like to share too.

That all hinges on your definition of reasonably aged. There are games that will not run at all on my computer that are being released right now. My Core2Duo with 2GB RAM and HD5750 video card running on a 32bit version of Windows just won't cope with modern games. It can stream video quite nicely though.

Then you do what any household does that has multiple people sharing one Internet connection and figure it out. If you can do that, or if this imaginary other user doesn't actually exist, then there is nothing wrong with a system like OnLive.

And you call me childish? Your entire argument is that if it doesn't work in 100% of households for 100% of games running at a perfect 60fps then the system is useless. You are damning this service just by having unrealistic expectations.

So if you don't expect a service like OnLive to fulfill all your gaming needs (so you still play games locally if your system can handle it), and you wait to play your games when other people aren't trying to watch Youtube, and you don't mind a drop in frame rate and latency, then this system works. All your swearing and name calling will not change this fact.

I just checked the first batch of games up to the letter B. Only 7 out of 42 games are available on GOG. That is nowhere near the definition of the word most.

Be that as it may, that wasn't what the original discussion was about. The question was whether you can play any games without launching the Steam client, not whether you can buy DRM-free versions of games on other sites. Changing the argument after being proven wrong is called shifting the goalposts.

So Phoronix has only just noticed this? This was discussed on Slashdot five months ago.

And yet that is the entire purpose of OnLive: to allow low-powered computers to play games that have higher requirements. So your assertion that the streaming would require the same level of GPU is obviously false. OnLive worked on mobile devices and smart TVs too - and none of those would have the power to run a modern game.

I'll tell you what is bullshit. Coming up with reasons why the site would not work when you obviously hadn't tried it. Do you really think that you can infinitely turn down the graphic levels enough to work on any low-spec system? If that were the case then the minimum system requirements for any game would be a 386 with on-board video.

And why do you need to invent another person who wants to use the Internet line as an excuse to belittle the system? If someone else needs the internet connection and you don't have a really high-spec computer then chances are you also have to share the PC. In that case you wouldn't be able to play any game whether it was locally installed or not.

I'm not a big fan of Steam, and if I have a choice I will always prefer a completely DRM-free option, the the grandparent poster was correct. Here is the list of games that you can run without the client loaded. It only took me a second to find this list with Google. (Actually, that's a lie. I used Bing, but that sounds like something that I shouldn't admit here!)

You still need the client to install them, and if you use the Steam backup/restore facility then you also need the client to be logged in.

Then what would you like to talk about that doesn't involve mentioning any products at all? If you go to a website that talks about "News for nerds, stuff that matters" then you are going to find that the stuff that matters to nerds will often be products that people sell (or in this case, give away). We can't all be MacGyver building our own supercomputers from coconut shells and earwax.

If a story doesn't interest you, or you think that it is just blatant consumerism, then feel free to go do something else like watch another inspirational episode of MacGyver from the MacGyver Complete Series box set, available at a cheap price and with free shipping at Amazon.

It's true that Microsoft have dropped some products quickly (and their support for APIs can be faddish), but they have also supported a lot of products for very long times. In fact, some of your examples seem a bit out of place with Flight Simulator lasting 24 years and Encarta lasting 16 years.

Customers get nothing? I think that you will find that customers also get a free upgrade to Windows 10. Everyone is rewarded!

Psst. They have always charged money for the platform. The difference now is that for the next 12 months they will not charge for upgrades. You seem to have it backwards.

People misunderstood the time-limited nature of that offer as it being a subscription service, but that was just wrong. Once you have upgraded to Windows 10 you won't have to pay a cent to keep using that OS on your PC. It will never expire and revert to a subscription system, because if they did that it would be a PR nightmare for Microsoft with allegations of turning the OS into ransomware.

So yes, it is FUD. It is FUD to tell people not to believe what Microsoft is saying now because you have imagined a future where they will suddenly force people to pay for their free product retrospectively. That really is the very definition of FUD.

As the grandparent said, this was just pandering to the specific audience. No, it is not the most important thing for NASA to do any more than companies who claim that "safety is their priority" really care about anything other than their profits. Or bands on tour say that <INSERT_YOUR_STATE> is their most favorite place to be. Or insurance companies who advertise that "we care about you". Or politicians who say... pretty much anything!

The only reason that you are fixated on this is that it gives you something about them Demeeecrats for you to get angry about. Do you have any specific problems with the actions of NASA? Can you even cite even one way that it has actually become a "muslim outreach"?

By the time Windows 7 was released Vista had enough service packs to make it quite usable, so I don't think that it is fair to say that my statement was far from the truth. There are plenty of people who still claim to this day that Vista was an unusable mess even though that was just the initial teething problem.

And even then, a lot of what was said about the OS was just wrong. I avoided Vista because of what I read about it here. When I finally got a laptop for my wife with it pre-installed, I decided to try it out for a laugh before I wiped it with my XP CD only to find that it was a perfectly capable system. It certainly didn't take 30 seconds to do a directory listing for me. I'm sure that a lot of people had driver issues that caused problems, but the other stuff said about it (like the DRM that was supposed to infest the OS and stop you from doing anything that Microsoft didn't want) was just the product of fantasy.

Of all the examples that I gave of the times when people have said that a version upgrade of Windows gave no real features, I think the Vista to Win7 would have to be either first or second in the list when ordered by plausibility. I think the fact that this claim was made about Xp->Vista (when that was the biggest change in Windows under the hood in nearly a decade) shows that in reality it is a bogus thing to say. I certainly don't say it. I was just pointing out that with each upgrade, someone will make that claim.