Contradicting licensing information on .NET / Visual Studio libraries

Question

janosdebugs · Accepted Answer

Hey HN,I'm evaluating the use of C#/.NET as a programming language. In light of Mono being merged into .NET, I was downloading the SDK and was quite surprised that it contains DLLs that are explicitly licensed under a commercial license and, in fact, seems to require the purchase of a Visual Studio Professional license. I have no problem paying for licenses, but this one seems to require a) a monthly subscription and b) is advertised on Microsoft's own site as free/open source.Any help from all you internet lawyers out there?Thank you.

GiorgioG · Answer

Unless you are distributing the files in https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/main/license-information... (and in general you shouldn't be), it's not something you need concern yourself with.I have used .NET Core in plenty of enterprises and we've never needed a license to develop against the SDK or distribute our applications.

meibo · Answer

These DLLs count as redistributables, which the VS2019 license in question, linked in the GitHub page in your post, explicitly allows you to distribute.https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/mlt031619/

ghuntley · Answer

.NET isn&rsquo;t really &ldquo;open&rdquo; see https://www.isdotnetopen.com also https://ghuntley.com/fracture which is related.

Contradicting licensing information on .NET / Visual Studio libraries

Contradicting licensing information on .NET / Visual Studio libraries

These DLLs count as redistributables, which the VS2019 license in question, linked in the GitHub page in your post, explicitly allows you to distribute.
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/license-terms/mlt031619/

.NET isn’t really “open” see https://www.isdotnetopen.com also https://ghuntley.com/fracture which is related.