http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

[Sam Varshavchik]

Matthew Woehlke writes:

> Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
>> In a couple of years Microsoft is bought by Fu-Bar Inc and there goes the
>> promise down the drain.
> 
> ...if only. The odds of *any* company that might buy out M$ (well, if it 
> isn't started by Gates and/or Ballmer and/or such) being as bad as M$ 
> have got to be pretty high ;-).

If you want legal advice, pay a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Microsoft's statement is what's generally called "covenant not to sue". When 
someone buys a business, they buy all the business's assets and liabilities. 
A covenant not to sue is generally considered a liability, and the covenant 
not to sue does not get to repudiated just by the virtue of the company 
changing owners.

Having said all that -- I agree that MSFT's promise is not to be given much 
weight. If MSFT desired to sue someone, I'm sure they'd come up with some 
way to claim that their cause of action falls outside the scope of this 
covenant. They have plenty of money to pay lawyers to invent creative 
arguments, and it will be up to the defendants to prove that MSFT's covenant 
applies, in their defense. Even better, they'll just get sued for some other 
reason, like MSFT claiming that they're violating some patent in Windows, 
and it's just purely by accident, heavens to betsy, that they have a bunch 
of Mono-based products.

Nothing to see here, move along.

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