FluentAssertions is Now a Paid Product!
Today’s newsletter is all about this week’s license change of FluentAssertions.
What Happened to FluentAssertions?
The well-known and highly appreciated assertion library FluentAssertion released version 8 this week.
So far, so good …
However, what nobody expected is that they change the license from the Apache 2.0 license to an Xceed Community License.
This license issued by Xceed (the new owner of the repository) requires purchasing a license for commercial use.
How much is a FluentAssertions 8 License?
If you use FluentAssertions in any commercial project at work, you need to have a paid license.
$129!
Yes, $129.95 per developer per YEAR.
Yesterday, I published a video where I go through what happened and how the community reacted, as well as what alternative solutions we as .NET developers have.
And I also talked to Dennis Doomen, the author and previous owner of the FluentAssertions project.
The video contains a statement I got from him personally.
A Rough Start to 2025 for .NET
It’s not the start of the year 2025 that I wished for .NET.
Last year, we had the controversy around the license change of Moq. This year, unfortunately, another widely used library followed.
All I can think of right now is that many developer question why Micrsooft builds some of the things into the platform/SDK that previously was available as a popular open-source project.
Now, with another project gone behind a paywall, I guess more developers will understand.
The Bright Side of .NET
Everything Microsoft brings to the table in the .NET world is always and will always be free to use for commercial projects.
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