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Comment by mr_overalls | Hacker News Reader

C# is such a nice language, and Microsoft has been making such strides toward openness and cross-platform with .NET lately.

Imagine if Microsoft granted Google a perpetual license to use C#.

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And Google briefly considered adopting C# instead of Java back in the day. As a .NET dev turned Android dev (and not liking Java 6 one bit) I regret they didn't go down that path...

http://www.wired.com/2012/04/android-google-oracle/

In another 2005 e-mail admitted as evidence by Oracle, Rubin tells Google co-founder Larry Page: “If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language, or 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”

Let's not forget that Microsoft is backing Oracle in making API's copyrightable.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-foresee...

They're already working with MIT and a patent release.

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT

Brainfuck probably has an equal chance of being selected as C#. The problem is more that the APIs and all of the existing apps. Google can't just wake up one morning and decide that everything will be now in language XYZ because there are literally millions of apps for Android which have been written in Java against Java APIs. C# would also be an unusual choice for a company that does zero(?) C# work.

I don't know. Weirder things have happened. And we're talking about a decision with billion-dollar ramifications.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/05/microsoft-and-google-collab...

Now it's too late, but unlike Brainfuck, Google did consider C# as an option, see my comment (sibling comment to yours)

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