.NET Core is open source

The reason for the core to be permissively licensed is to keep having proprietary software around. Like additional libraries that (potentially free software) applications will use (making them impossible to run in freedom). I see nothing positive in that.

And the GPL often is a good choice for libraries: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

I wrote:
> To my reading, what you get from Microsoft here is just as risky for us
> to depend on as what they offered years ago. So, as the FSF pointed out
> years ago, "It only says that Microsoft will not sue you over claims in
> patents that it owns or controls. If Microsoft sells one of those
> patents, there's nothing stopping the buyer from suing everyone who uses
> the software.".

According to http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/ End Software
Patents (ESP) speculates that "the 2012 'in re Spansion' case in the USA
and the judge ruled that a promise is the same as a licence". However,
this might not matter because:

- "it's not explicit in the ruling if this still applies when someone
else buys the patents" --
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/The_value_of_promises_and_estoppel_defences

- "you’re only protected if you’re distributing the code “as part of
either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a
.NET Runtime“. So if you add any of the code to another project, then
you lose protection and MS reserves the right to sue you or ask for
royalties" -- http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/

- "the protection only applies to a “compliant implementation” of .NET.
So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for
embedded devices, then your implementation won’t be compliant and the
protection doesn’t apply to you." --
http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/

So even if Microsoft's patent promise not to sue is as good as a
license, Microsoft's promise has enough problems with it that you're
still left with the same result: you're better off not building
dependencies on .NET.

I wrote:
> To my reading, what you get from Microsoft here is just as risky for us
> to depend on as what they offered years ago. So, as the FSF pointed out
> years ago, "It only says that Microsoft will not sue you over claims in
> patents that it owns or controls. If Microsoft sells one of those
> patents, there's nothing stopping the buyer from suing everyone who uses
> the software.".

According to http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/ End Software
Patents (ESP) speculates that "the 2012 'in re Spansion' case in the USA
and the judge ruled that a promise is the same as a licence". However,
this might not matter because:

- "it's not explicit in the ruling if this still applies when someone
else buys the patents" --
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/The_value_of_promises_and_estoppel_defences

- "you’re only protected if you’re distributing the code “as part of
either a .NET Runtime or as part of any application designed to run on a
.NET Runtime“. So if you add any of the code to another project, then
you lose protection and MS reserves the right to sue you or ask for
royalties" -- http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/

- "the protection only applies to a “compliant implementation” of .NET.
So if you want to remove some parts and make a streamlined framework for
embedded devices, then your implementation won’t be compliant and the
protection doesn’t apply to you." --
http://endsoftpatents.org/2014/11/ms-net/

So even if Microsoft's patent promise not to sue is as good as a
license, Microsoft's promise has enough problems with it that you're
still left with the same result: you're better off not building
dependencies on .NET.

Well said.

"Covered Code" only covers what you get from Microsoft. It doesn't apply to, say, independent implementations - only to that which you get from Microsoft (reference ""Covered Code" means those Microsoft .NET libraries and runtime components as made available by Microsoft at..." and not even modifications of that code you get from them. "Oh, it's been modified - You no longer get the patent promise" (reference "that are infringed only as a consequence of modification of Covered Code"). "Oh, it's been added into Mono - you no longer get the patent promise (reference "...infringed only by the combination of Covered Code with third party code.")

Then, "currently own by Microsoft" the patent document says. Microsoft sells patents (which they have done - look it up) and guess what? It's not owned by Microsoft anymore. The whole deal's out the window.

It also only applies to "compliant implementation" - They could come & say "Oh, I'm sorry - Your implementation isn't 'compliant' for this, that and the other reason which was a requirement to get the promise not to sue." Or maybe "Oh, the source code has this bug which renders it less than 100% 'compliant' with the spec, so they don't get the promise." And then #B in the .NET Runtime section only applies to additional stuff they've published. All they need to do is not publish some part of the API. People might try to include it anyway. Try to include a non-documented API? (Because surely Microsoft documents absolutely everything about the API on its MSDN website, right?) You don't get the patent promise.

In short, patents are still a problem. They can still sue anyone that they want to even over some small technicality. The FSF's guidance that "we should discourage people from writing programs in C#" still holds. Nothing of that has changed. Microsoft could do a better job with their patent license to address the free software movement's concerns but they haven't because they don't really want to.

Don't forget that this is still the company we're dealing with starting from his description 19 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YExl9ojclo&t=0m19s

Thanks, and I should point out that if someone were to try to add that stuff outside of Core into some implementation of their own (such as Mono) they don't get the patent promise because the promise only extends to "Covered Code" and it defines it that: "Covered Code means those Microsoft .NET libraries and runtime components as made available by Microsoft at https://github.com/dotnet/corefx."