Standardization and licensing[edit]
In August 2000, Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett-Packard and Intel Corporation co-sponsored the submission of specifications for C# as well as the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) to the standards organization Ecma International. In December 2001, ECMA released ECMA-334 C# Language Specification. C# became an ISO standard in 2003 (ISO/IEC 23270:2003 - Information technology — Programming languages — C#). ECMA had previously adopted equivalent specifications as the 2nd edition of C#, in December 2002.
In June 2005, ECMA approved edition 3 of the C# specification, and updated ECMA-334. Additions included partial classes, anonymous methods, nullable types, and generics(somewhat similar to C++ templates).
In July 2005, ECMA submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1, via the latter's Fast-Track process, the standards and related TRs. This process usually takes 6–9 months.
The C# language definition and the CLI are standardized under ISO and Ecma standards that provide reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing protection from patent claims.
Microsoft has agreed not to sue open source developers for violating patents in non-profit projects for the part of the framework that is covered by the OSP.[46] Microsoft has also agreed not to enforce patents relating to Novell products against Novell's paying customers[47] with the exception of a list of products that do not explicitly mention C#, .NET or Novell's implementation of .NET (The Mono Project).[48] However, Novell maintains that Mono does not infringe any Microsoft patents.[49] Microsoft has also made a specific agreement not to enforce patent rights related to the Moonlight browser plugin, which depends on Mono, provided it is obtained through Novell.[50]
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