Posts by Vahokif

This IS legally binding

"Q: Is this Community Promise legally binding on Microsoft and will it be available in the future to me and to others?

A: Yes, the CP is legally binding upon Microsoft. The CP is a unilateral promise from Microsoft and in these circumstances unilateral promises may be enforced against the party making such a promise. Because the CP states that the promise is irrevocable, it may not be withdrawn by Microsoft. The CP is, and will be, available to everyone now and in the future for the specifications to which it applies. As stated in the CP, the only time Microsoft can withdraw its promise against a specific person or company for a specific Covered Specification is if that person or company brings (or voluntarily participates in) a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft regarding Microsoft’s implementation of the same Covered Specification. This type of “suspension” clause is common industry practice. "

tl;dr they can't sue you, ever

Also, Mono contains

1) parts that are covered by the ECMA standard

2) original namespaces (like Mono.Simd)

3) open-sourced Microsoft stuff (like ASP.NET, under the OSI-approved MS-PL license)

4) parts that are in .NET but not covered by the standard (like Winforms)

which is why Miguel de Icaza says they'll be splitting their distribution up into definitely safe (1 and 2) and potentially dodgy (3 and 4) packages, which is what already happens on Ubuntu for instance.