While the DotGNU project was originally started in reaction to the threat of Microsoft's .NET strategy, nowadays, the emphasis in our thinking is more on the offensive. DotGNU should be seen in the context of the overall desire of the free software movement to provide businesses with viable alternatives to proprietary software for all business processes. One major challenge in this area is to provide a migration path which provides significant benefits already during the first stages of the transition to free software. DotGNU helps here, because the webservices approach allows to make the transition in multiple small steps.
When a business process cannot be efficiently carried out using Free Software because of patent issues, it'll make good business sense to outsource it as a webservice to a country which doesn't recognize software patents. This will make it economically disadvantageous for countries to recognize software patents, and in a globalized economy where the various countries are competing with each other, eventually all countries will want to abolish the patentability of algorithms and other software inventions.
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