Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ Linonut on Monday 03 March 2008 16:46 : \____
>
>> * Miguel de Icaza peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>>>> What will be the terms for commercial usage of Mono?
>>>
>>> I refer you to our licensing page, or to the wikipedia for the gory
>>> details.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#License
>>
>> Developers contributing source code to Mono upstream must agree to
>> distribute their code to Novell under a license that allows Novell to
>> relicense the code under other licensing terms. This practice is
>> similar to copyright assignment agreements used in other free and
>> open source software projects (used in many GNU projects and by
>> MySQL), however, this method allows the developer to retain
>> copyright of the original work while still preserving Novell's
>> ability to commercially license Mono for specific customers that
>> require different licensing terms than what is provided in general
>> release versions (such as running Mono in embedded firmware
>> environments).
>>
>> . . .
>>
>> This has been summed up by Richard Stallman[8]:
>>
>> Mono is a free implementation of Microsoft's language C#.
>> Microsoft has declared itself our enemy and we know that
>> Microsoft is getting patents on some features of C#. So I think
>> it's dangerous to use C#, and it may be dangerous to use Mono.
>> There's nothing wrong with Mono. Mono is a free
>> implementation of a language that users use. It's good to provide
>> free implementations. We should have free implementations of
>> every language. But, depending on it is dangerous, and we better
>> not do that.
>>
>> On November 2, 2006, Microsoft and Novell announced a joint agreement
>> whereby Microsoft agreed to not sue Novell's customers for
>> patent infringement. According to Mono project leader Miguel de
>> Icaza, this agreement extends to Mono but only for Novell
>> developers and customers.
>
> Tes, got to have some competitive advantage, hey? ;-) You know, keep those
> nasty Ubuntu feet on fire.
>
Oh god, I'd no idea that the Mono licensing terms were so awful for the
authors of the code. This is basically a BSD clause - you write, Novell
get to take the code and give you nothing back. This is atrocious, and
I sincerely hope that nobody is stupid enough to contribute any code
under such conditions.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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