Comment by dragonwriter
11 years ago
> It could mean we could start adopting it and then at some point down the road they could discontinue the open version and start making closed features/updates.
They could do that if it was GPL, too.
With MIT or GPL or any other FOSS license, if there is a sufficiently interested party, they can, however, maintain their own version starting with any Microsoft FOSS release; Free software doesn't mean that the original owner can't release proprietary derivatives in the future, it means that what has been released Free can always be used -- and maintained -- as Free software by anyone who wants.
Of course, there is a cost to that maintenance role, and you have no guarantee that someone will take it up if the original maintainer drops it or decides to release proprietary software instead. Free software gives you the right to spend your own resources to maintain it, not the entitlement for someone else to maintain it for you indefinitely.
MIT vs. GPL is pretty much irrelevant here.
What you're saying is correct, MIT vs GPL is irrelevant if Microsoft owns the whole copyright to the project.
Contributors to .NET need to assign their copyright to the .NET Foundation (http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/faq), which seems impartial but also has a board of 100% Microsoft employees. If .NET were GPL, then only the .NET Foundation would have the power to let others create proprietary extensions, which I guarantee they would give Microsoft.
Miguel de Icaza is on the board and not an MSFT employee.
You're right. I was under the impression that Microsoft had bought Xaramin.