I am not legal expert, but I am wondering about the different licensing and what it means and means to Open Source/FOSS.
What got me wondering was the recent announcements about Mono (2.6) and Monodevelop (2.2). What I am talking about here can be found in Miguel de Icaza’s blog Nine Months Later: Mono 2.6 and MonoDevelop 2.2 and I thought I would ask here because I get less Mono-bashing here that detracts from the discussion (if any).
The part that really got me thinking was
MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject’s Oxygene).
I like the idea of the whole Mono stack being open source and am not entirely happy that the iPhone development plug-in (MonoTouch) is closed and pay-for only (and PAY it is! $399 - $3,999!).
I understand Novell is a corporation and needs to make money, and Mono is a project that needs to give Novell a reason to invest time/manpower into it. I am not starry-eyed to its corporate angel.
I just want to see how this licensing will effect the whole project, or is it possible (whether or not likely… keep conspiracy theories to yourself) that Monodevelop becomes an empty shell that does nothing until you pay for a plug-in even for the most minute activities?
Other than allowing to charge or plug in proprietary code into Monodevelop, what purpose/benefit will changing the code provide and what does it give up?
Thanks! 