Mono relicensed to MIT with a patent promise

7 replies [Last post]
t3g
t3g
Offline
Joined: 05/15/2011
Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Joined: 07/24/2010

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.

pizzaiolo
Offline
Joined: 03/12/2015

Ugh. This is bullshit. We need to defend copyleft tooth and nail.

Jabjabs
Offline
Joined: 07/05/2014

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.

onpon4
Offline
Joined: 05/30/2012

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.

Turtleman
Offline
Joined: 05/22/2013

So is Mono on Android still not free?

moxalt
Offline
Joined: 06/19/2015

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.

megurineturilli
Offline
Joined: 01/10/2012

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.