The architects of the Mono Project, an open-source version of Microsoft's .Net standard, have decided to alter the project's license to make it easier for corporations to contribute code to the initiative.
But the change, which will be announced at the Linuxworld conference in New York on Monday, also raises the vexing possibility that some future versions of Mono might not be fully open to developer modification, an idea that is at the center of the open-source and free-software movements.
Specifically, the Mono class libraries -- which consist of most of the project's code -- will now be released under the X11 License instead of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is the license of choice for many in the open-source community.
Although both are "free-software" licenses, the X11 License differs from the GPL in one key area: It does not require developers who add code to the software to release their improvements to the public.
"This provides an option that allows people to choose how they want to modify the (source code of Mono)," said Jon Perr, the vice president of marketing for Ximian, the open-source company that initiated the Mono Project. "If somebody wants to make the source available they can, but they don't have to."
Miguel de Icaza, Ximian's co-founder and chief technologist, added that a different license would prompt Hewlett Packard and Intel to contribute "large chunks" of code to the project. It would also allow developers working on "embedded systems" -- such as set-top boxes, home appliances and other non-PC systems -- to work with Mono.
De Icaza explained that complying with the GPL was difficult or in some cases impossible for embedded developers. "The GPL says that (a user) is entitled to make changes to the software. The problem for an embedded system is that, say for a set-top box, you might have to provide it with a keyboard or some other system to make it modifiable, to comply with the license," he said.
But he acknowledged that there are some disadvantages to the X11. "So this doesn't prohibit Intel from making an optimized Intel-only version (of Mono) that they wouldn't release to the world -- that is a downside," he offered. "It does worry me a bit, but the advantage is getting large contributors to the project."
Called for comment, an Intel representative said that his company was committed to keeping its code open to developers, allowing them to do whatever they want with it, including giving them the option of not releasing their own improvements to the system.
The Mono Project was announced last July as an effort by open-source developers to "head Microsoft off at the pass," according to a developer who described the project at the time. De Icaza said then he considered Microsoft's .Net a theoretically interesting cross-platform initiative, but he thought it would be much more useful to developers if it were created with an adherence to open-source ideals, and if it were available on Linux systems, instead of just Windows.
In less than a year, the group has made "a great deal of progress" on this Linux version of .Net, de Icaza said. The company believes that it will have the "execution environment" -- the part of the system that allows developers to run programs -- completed by this summer.
But "any help we can get on this thing is going to be very useful," de Icaza said, and the change of license was crucial in letting corporations participate.
De Icaza is considered one of the leaders in the open-source community -- he is on the board of the GNOME Foundation, which coordinates the development of the GNOME graphical interface, a Windows-like desktop for Linux systems.
Ximian sells (and gives away) its own versions of that system, as well as other open-source applications. All of those will remain under the GPL, de Icaza said, adding that Ximian itself has no plans to "close off Mono."
Ximian's efforts to commercialize Linux applications while still remaining true to the cause of open source seem to have been well received in the open-source world, but they have been criticized before. When the company announced a $9.95-per-month subscription plan last month -- ostensibly to facilitate downloading its wares -- the news was greeted with few smiles on Slashdot, which is usually a good place to gauge the happiness of Linux lovers.
But Bruce Perens, an open-source pioneer who now works as an adviser to Hewlett Packard on its Linux systems, said that he didn't believe the license change was going to upset too many people.
"The thing to make really clear is that both licenses are accepted as free software and as open source," he said. "The GPL says, 'For the grant of my software, you give me yours, too.' The X11 says, 'It would be nice if you gave me your improvements for my software, but I really don't care that much.' It's a different way of looking at things," Perens said.
