Mono relicensed to MIT with a patent promise
http://www.mono-project.com/news/2016/03/31/mono-relicensed-mit/
https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
Oh and Xamarian is now free with the Xamarian SDK "open sourced": http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-Opening-Xamarin
Thoughts?
In the announcement, Miguel de Icaza also outlines a number of the proprietary Mono extensions that will also be opened up.
Here is why Mono’s runtime goes permissive. Bad news. Miguel de Icaza, once a great free software proponent, has turned to the dark side.
Ugh. This is bullshit. We need to defend copyleft tooth and nail.
The idea of building a program using non-GPL tools is just horrifying. Even having the option to close up the tool chain means eventually somebody will try and close it.
That's quite an extreme position to take. The Python interpreter is covered by a license which is not the GPL, and quite permissive. I don't know about other languages, since I don't use them.
The thing is, just because there can be proprietary compilers doesn't mean you will have to use them. If a permissively licensed compiler is available, that version of the compiler will always be available under those terms, even in the unlikely worst-case scenario where all derivatives and new versions become proprietary.
So is Mono on Android still not free?
On Thu, 31 Mar 2016 20:13:03 +0200 (CEST)
name at domain wrote:
> http://www.mono-project.com/news/2016/03/31/mono-relicensed-mit/
> https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
>
> Oh and Xamarian is now free with the Xamarian SDK "open sourced":
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-Opening-Xamarin
>
> Thoughts?
The world just gets worse and worse- now we'll be seeing C# and .NET penetrating the free world even more- there's a good reason GNU rejects packages with Mono infesting them. Regardless of the program itself, the underlying technologies are still under the thumb of Microsoft.
I try to avoid both Mono and Java, just because they are hard to maintain. One of the free programs that I use is written in C# and translated to Java using a perl script.
It is much better to use a language that is natively supported by GCC, using toolkits that are at least LGPLed.