Fsharp: Switch to MIT or BSD style license?

[ninjarobot]

Is there any possibility of switching the runtime libraries to an MIT or BSD style license? Apache 2 is generally quite friendly, but due to the terminology about patent litigation in section 3, whenever I use it, my projects are subject to a lot of additional scrutiny to ensure any possible patent litigation wouldn't cause issues with other patented technology I'm integrating with. A more permissive license would, in some cases, prevent the scrutiny of legal departments, which can inhibit adoption.

There may be some patents on the compiler side of F#, and in that case, Apache 2 would be fine, but if that sort of patent litigation terminology isn't in the spirit of the F# runtime, particularly FSharp.Core, it would be great if it were released under a more flexible license. This would be similar to C# and the dotnetcore runtime where the compiler and runtime have different licenses:

Roslyn - Apache 2 license
DotNetCore - MIT license

[cartermp]

I'm pro MIT and think we should use it.

[forki]

Dual license is probably good idea and MS had changed licenses couple of
times now.

(but please don't change the header of the files again and again.)

Am 11.11.2016 20:12 schrieb "Phillip Carter" [email protected]:

I'm pro MIT and think we should use it.

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[ninjarobot]

Any more thoughts on this? It would be really great to have the runtime as MIT.

[cartermp]

My stance hasn't changed - pro MIT. @KevinRansom @dsyme?

[KevinRansom]

I will alert the lawyers see if there is any issue. I doubt if a change will be a problem, The CLR is already MIT.

[forki]

Ideally it should be cross-licensed so people that rely on the current
license (for whatever legal reason there might be) are not broken.

Am 07.08.2017 8:11 nachm. schrieb "Kevin Ransom (msft)" <
[email protected]>:

I will alert the lawyers see if there is any issue. I doubt if a change
will be a problem, The CLR is already MIT.

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[cartermp]

Closing in favor of #3440, since now have approval.

[KevinRansom]

@ninjarobot : https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/3440