Got Visual Studio and the Interop.PCDLRN.dll... Now what?

MS open-sourced .NET Core under the quite permissive MIT license.
...

... and don't forget the promise not to sue for patent infringement:
https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT

So, it appears that if you write something that uses the MS .NET core as they provided you're safe and cannot be sued. If you modify the code for .NET then maybe your not so safe (you can be sued for whatever patents they have on .NET ?) which brings up the point of why did they even bother to release the source code if they don't want you to change it?

I don't trust MS at all. I still remember all the antitrust stuff from around 2000 which showed all of their internal tactics for crushing competitors and squeezing the industry. Even though this is ancient history they still do very questionable things (ISO/IEC 29500 ring a bell, maybe Samba/Kerberos?). Why not just release the code with a GPL license and forget about 'promising' not to sue?

It doesn't affect me since I don't write anything using .NET and likely never will. I know that many in the free software community distrust MS and it would be amazing if they simply decided to 'jump on board' and start writing .NET components without asking questions about what kind of problems they could run into. If the situation is not absolutely crystal clear when dealing with MS then it is assumed to be a problem (a safe assumption usually). Maybe things are different with MS as compared to what they were back in the early days but this is something they have to demonstrate first. A promise not to sue that disappears if you change the code in .NET doesn't sound too different from how they operated in the past.

I realize this is way off topic. Sorry for hijacking.

MS open-sourced .NET Core under the quite permissive MIT license.
...

... and don't forget the promise not to sue for patent infringement:
https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT

So, it appears that if you write something that uses the MS .NET core as they provided you're safe and cannot be sued. If you modify the code for .NET then maybe your not so safe (you can be sued for whatever patents they have on .NET ?) which brings up the point of why did they even bother to release the source code if they don't want you to change it?

I don't trust MS at all. I still remember all the antitrust stuff from around 2000 which showed all of their internal tactics for crushing competitors and squeezing the industry. Even though this is ancient history they still do very questionable things (ISO/IEC 29500 ring a bell, maybe Samba/Kerberos?). Why not just release the code with a GPL license and forget about 'promising' not to sue?

It doesn't affect me since I don't write anything using .NET and likely never will. I know that many in the free software community distrust MS and it would be amazing if they simply decided to 'jump on board' and start writing .NET components without asking questions about what kind of problems they could run into. If the situation is not absolutely crystal clear when dealing with MS then it is assumed to be a problem (a safe assumption usually). Maybe things are different with MS as compared to what they were back in the early days but this is something they have to demonstrate first. A promise not to sue that disappears if you change the code in .NET doesn't sound too different from how they operated in the past.

I realize this is way off topic. Sorry for hijacking.