I don't think "was always" is an accurate statement

However, above and beyond free, it is also a collection of ECMA standards https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fundamentals/standa...

Now, don't get me wrong: I have grave suspicions there is currently only one actual implementation of them (I don't count hobby, or abandonware, ones) but IMHO "actual standard" combined with "for real reference implementation" is way better than just reference implementation

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since I'm still within the edit window, the MAUI referenced by the sibling comment is MIT licensed https://github.com/dotnet/maui

https://github.com/dotnet/blazor (Apache 2) is marked an archived, and points to https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore (MIT) but command-f blazor on its readme is nothing so :shrug:

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NekkoDroid 2 days ago | parent [-]

> I don't think "was always" is an accurate statement

If we want to be really pedantic they said ".NET" and not ".NET Framework" or ".NET Core", so basically that what came with .NET 5 and newer.

	▲	mdaniel 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The very idea of those 3 things being disjoint is a supremely Microsoftian thing to do and makes discussions horrific