Mono, Open Core, and Other Bizarre Forms of Open Source

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-10-20 10:39:37 UTC
Modified: 2009-10-20 10:39:37 UTC

Free software is not the same as open core

Summary: Why Mono fits the description of Open Core, which may make it "the New Shareware"

A LOT has been said since Samba's Jeremy Allison published his opinion about Mono [1, 2, 3, 4]. Jason from the Mono-Nono Web site got around to commenting about it and worth mentioning are the following bits:

In any case, I first started noticing Mr. Allison’s responses directly addressing the fallacy of comparing Mono and Samba in the comments to an error-filled attack rant against RMS by Jason Perlow for ZD Net. Although it is certainly “pearls before swine” to attempt to correct Mr. Perlow, Mr. Allison does make his point:
Comparing Mono to Samba is incorrect. Samba has the PFIF agreements, see here for details:

http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html

To my knowledge Mono has nothing like this.
[...]

Mr. Allison has now taken the time to address Mono in more detail with a blog entry “Monomania“. I encourage you to read it.

I also encourage you to consider all the hoops that Team Mono insists critics people must jump through to criticize Mono, and how Mr. Allison surely meets or exceeds all that I have seen. Yet, I do not see Team Mono accepting his criticism, nor do I see my mailbox filling with acknowledgement that it’s not just crazy zealots that have a problem with Mono.

Why am I not seeing these things? Because Mono apologists are not honest in their arguments. They like Mono, and will make any argument they think supports it, and ignore or attack anything that they think weakens it.

It’s a song I’ve sung many times, and this latest wrinkle on Mono == Samba is just one more example of the sloppy reasoning and poor logic behind Team Mono’s defenses.

What's interesting about Mono is that, as the FSF warned, it is divided into "legal" parts (core) and "illegal" parts (those that require Microsoft software patents, such that only Novell customers are covered). It makes Mono very much akin to "open core" rather than "open source". For those who have not followed the heated debate about "open core", Bradley Kuhn from the SFLC calls it "the New Shareware" and Simon Phipps from Sun Microsystems commented about it as follows:

Bradley Kuhn's analysis reflects the same conclusions I've reached myself about corporate-aggregated copyright. That's not to say it automatically disqualifies a project as non-Free, but it's the reason I included "diverse copyright ownership" as a criterion on the proposed open source scorecard. As a side-note, Given Bradley's critique of the GPL as "just a tool", surely it's time to see that open source is not the enemy of software freedom and to finally cut the antagonistic rhetoric.

Is it time to say that Mono uses the "open core" model, where only "core" packages are to be seen as legal or gratis? Banshee, for example, is a Novell project that uses some Mono parts that require patents. ⬆

"The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us.

"Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there's no way to avoid this danger. But that's no reason to put our head inside Microsoft's jaws."

--Richard Stallman, 2007

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register MS, Sponsored by Communist Party of China (CPC): What will happen when the bubble crashes the economy?
Dances With Wolves, Wakes Up With Fleas: Small minds say "td;dr" whereas the rest say, "give me information, give me time to study it"...
Microsoft's Thailand Problem: It's definitely not Windows
New Lows for Microsoft in Micronesia: GNU/Linux has shown some growth there too
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 5 Out of 200: Clearly Not a Security Professional/Expert, Only Ever Pretending to be One: "The Claimant says he is “a computer security expert”, but his background and his track record in the education sense (genetics) does not support this assertion."
Links 07/03/2026: Fuel Already Running Low and "Economic Crisis of the Iran War": Links for the day
The Corporate Media Repeated the Lies Told by Jack Dorsey ("AI" Hype), Now It Does the Same for Larry Ellison: Disregard the hundreds of headlines that say mass layoffs at Oracle are due to "AI" something
The Free Software Community is Gaining Momentum as Its Importance is More Broadly Realised: As long as "trendy" technology goes in a negative direction there will be a growing portion in society looking for alternatives
Spooking or Chasing Away Women (From Computer Science): The status quo discourages women from even trying to study Computer Science and related disciplines
"IBM Has Changed So Much in the Last Decade to the Point It's Completely Unrecognizable.": IBM is a dying, rotting company with a morbid culture
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 06, 2026: IRC logs for Friday, March 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/03/2026: Coffee Problem, Marchintosh, Learning, and "Selectively Disabling HTTP": Links for the day
Under IBM, Some Fedora Blog Posts Have Become LLM Slop! (Red Hat is Doomed by Slop Fanaticism): Who would even bother reading such trash?
Lots of People Leaving IBM Today: IBM cannot be trusted
LLM Slop Rare and Scarce This Friday: We still hope that by the end of this year slop will become nearly extinct
Defending British Democracy From American Predators: We stand united and strong in the face of predators
Links 06/03/2026: LLM Prompt-injection Vulnerability in Microsoft's Proprietary GitHub, "260,000 Federal Jobs Lost": Links for the day
It's Friday and Many People Publicly Announce Leaving IBM (Which is Engineering 'Willful' Departures to Mask RAs' Scale): We understand from whistleblowers that IBM already destroyed Red Hat's culture
Dr. Richard Stallman (RMS), the Man Whose Mind Scares GAFAM et al, Began Speaking in Switzerland: His ideas and ideals are not obscene
Gemini Links 06/03/2026: "Setting up the Feed" and Using Molly Brown: Links for the day
Links 06/03/2026: Can't Copyright Slop in US, Microsoft Became Slop Provider for Militarism: Links for the day
Garrett Does Not Just Try to Cover Up for Himself, He's Clearly Covering Up for His Mates From Microsoft (and Admits Third Parties Fund His Litigation, With Their Legal Bills Estimates Already Approaching $1,000,000): They have already sent us about 75 KG of legal papers. How is any judge supposed to keep up?
Richard Stallman in the United States - Part IV - Back to Switzerland: The "cancel mob" tried to "finish off" RMS 5 years ago
Dr. Richard Stallman in Ada Lovelace Lecture Series 20 Hours From Now in Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology (Rotkreuz): Well-connected and affluent corporations want everything to be controlled by them, ranging from culture to words and news
Threats Issued to Daniel Pocock Having Launched the JuristGate Web Site Which Covers Financial Fraud in "Legal Insurance" Clothing: Is our world governed by laws or by rich corporations (or nations/superpowers) with well-connected lawyers/politicians?
International Women's Day: At the EPO, for Women to Become Managers They Need to Sleep With Well-connected Men and Mingle With Corrupt Men: Sunday is International Women's Day
Dr. Richard Stallman Starts His Talks in Switzerland in 8 Hours: They try to assess how many people plan to attend to ensure everyone gets a seat (without compromising the privacy/identity of those attending)
IBM Red Hat Layoffs: It's Not About "AI": "Automation" is not "AI", it's just a generic term which can describe jobs left for machines to do, sometimes computers
Microsoft Windows Used to be Identified on Over 99% of Web Requests From Benin. Now It's Around 50%.: Or a lot less
Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' Has Severe Financial Problems, Version Inflation ("GPT-5.4") is Mindless Hype and a Misleading Distraction: In practice, both users and sponsors of ChaffGPT are fleeing
The Techrights Static Site Generator (SSG) Turns 5 Next Year: It's still under active development in our Git servers
New XBox Boss (Sharma) Implicitly Confirmed XBox (the Console) is Now Dead: Vista 11 is now also known as "XBox"
Murder as a 'Joke' to GAFAM People (Sociopathy): When it comes to Microsoft and Salesforce, they profit from this mentality
GNU/Linux Seen as Rising to 20% in Eritrea, But That's statCounter Identifying "Unknown" as GNU/Linux: What if statCounter managed to figure out what all those "unknowns" are?
Microsoft ‘Project Helix’ is Just a Tweet in MElon's "X": Some "tweet" is easy, as words are cheap
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 4 Out of 200: Rianne’s Version of Events and Narrative: today we tell Rianne's experience
EPO Staff to 'Meet' This Coming Tuesday to Plan Industrial Actions Including Upcoming Strikes: using Microsoft spyware to organise this can be an own goal because Microsoft serves the dictators, not the union that tries to topple them
Thousands of EPO Workers Rally Against EPO Management: The staff is furious to see what became of the EPC and the EPO. This is not sustainable.
In Argentina Firefox is Measured at Only 1%, Google Chrome (Proprietary) at About 90%: And it has long been that way
IBM's March 2026 Layoffs Already Happening (to Accelerate Soon in Europe and America): We're probably seeing some of the last years of IBM and it's anything but certain that IBM can survive the coming decade
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 05, 2026: IRC logs for Thursday, March 05, 2026
Gemini Links 05/03/2026: Industrial Panettone, Cancel, and LLMs: Links for the day
It's Not "AI", IBM is Collapsing Due to Financial Difficulties, "All Small Country Offices Will Close": IBM is in trouble. Insiders know it.
"AI Companies" Running Out of Money, GAFAM Layoffs Are Signs of Weakness, Not "AI Efficiency" or Novelty: In the past, this term ("AI") had another meaning and connotation
Libel/Defamation Law Does Not Exist to Cover up Crimes: The projection tactics are nothing new
Myanmar/Burma: Growing Acceptance of GNU/Linux, Big Losses for Windows: GNU/Linux has come close to 5% there
Without IBM, Microsoft Would Not Have Taken Off. Both Companies Need to be 'Taken Down'.: Maybe it's time to boycott IBM as well
'Former' Red Hat Staff Upset That Techrights Covers IBM Accounting Problems: Are we touching a sensitive subject at IBM?
Ubuntu is Controlled by a Youngster From the British Army (Background in Mass Surveillance), So One Can Expect Ubuntu to Not Respect Privacy: "Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel"
IBM Hates Computer Freedom. This Means Red Hat Too is an Enemy of Software Freedom.: A summary of Fedora's position when it comes to "attestation"
IBM Union Says Many IBM Layoffs in Europe, With Netherlands and Belgium Confirmed, Allegedly Italy Soon (200 Layoffs): IBM's demise will harm Red Hat and already harms Red Hat, according to whistleblowers
Microsoft and Microsoft's 'Open' 'AI' Seeking Bailout From the Pentagon Means Brand Erosion: Microsoft and its offshoots growing more and more dependent on military ("defence"; "Department of War") budget
Another EPO Strike a Fortnight From Now, Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Shares 127-Page Document Explaining How Policies Impact EPO Staff: The Office is circling down the drain
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 3 Out of 200: A More In-Depth Breakdown: presents the narrative in a less chronological and more logically coherent fashion
2026 Seems Like (Potentially) the Last Year of Slop Drowning News Sites: Sites that do so perish [...] It's getting hard to find slop in news sites which cover "Linux" because many gave up
Links 05/03/2026: New LexisNexis Data Breach Confirmed, "Goldman Sachs Head During Financial Crisis Says He “Smells” a Similar Crash Coming": Links for the day
"Silent Layoffs" or "Forever Layoffs" at IBM and Red Hat (After Bluewashing): Like every day (all day long) we can see people who leave IBM and say something that's based on a 'script'
Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Others Promoting String of RMS Talks, Starting Tomorrow in Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology: Well done, FSF!
Links 05/03/2026: A Bet Against Substack, American Government Openly Hostile Towards Environment: Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/03/2026: Greed and Sentiments Shifting Against Slop: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 04, 2026: IRC logs for Wednesday, March 04, 2026