[Mono-list] Mono and Patents....

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Fri, 2004-03-12 at 14:19, Andy Lewis wrote:
<snip/>
> First, regarding Mono licensing. It appears to be a mix of GPL, LGPL, 
> and X11 licenses. Does this combination allow me to develop commercial 
> applications using mono and distribute them using the "free" licenses, 
> provided that I am not distributed modified Mono libraries or 
> components, and only my own code is closed source? Or does that require 
> a different (non-free)  license?

Yes, depending on what your app does.

The runtime assemblies (*.dll; all assemblies a managed program is
likely to reference) are under the MIT/X11 license.  As such, you can
freely use them, copy them, integrate them into your own proprietary
apps, print the source, start a fire, whatever. [1]

The runtime libraries (*.so, such as libmono.so, libmint.so) are
licensed under the LGPL.  As such, you can link against them, permitting
better integration between managed and unmanaged code (such as an
existing unmanaged application, like Evolution).

The applications (*.exe, such as mcs.exe, mono, mint, etc.) are GPL. 
You wouldn't link against them anyway, but you can't create a
proprietary C# compiler based on MCS, for example.

Hopefully that clears matters up for you.

 - Jon

[1] I'm not liable for any fires started in this fashion. :-)