The .NET Foundation is announcing that AutoMapper is graduating from the Foundation. This departure is amicable and occurs on friendly terms as AutoMapper transitions to a commercial licensing model.
We fully understand and respect Jimmy Bogard's decision to commercialize AutoMapper and MediatR.
AutoMapper's new Reciprocal Public License (RPL 1.5) represents a shift from permissive to copyleft licensing. While this license remains officially open source, it no longer aligns with the .NET Foundation's current eligibility criteria, which requires member projects to use permissive open source licenses.
The .NET Foundation Board of Directors met to discuss this situation and decided to maintain our current open source requirements for member projects at this time. Our eligibility criteria specify that projects must be “offered under a standard, permissive open source license which has been approved by the .NET Foundation.”
That said, we are actively evaluating the possibility of dual licensing frameworks for future consideration. However, given our established stewardship processes and the need for careful deliberation on such policy changes, we believe maintaining consistency in our current requirements is the right approach for now.
The .NET Foundation is constantly exploring new ways to support projects and help them achieve greater success. Recent initiatives include:
Monthly Project Spotlights – Full project features with maintainer interviews to increase visibility
Newsletter & Social Promotion – Each month we highlight different seed category projects across our newsletter and social media channels
Community Discord – Our Discord server provides a space for project maintainers and community members to connect, collaborate, and share knowledge
Corporate Engagement – While we operate with budget constraints that limit direct financial support, we actively encourage corporate sponsors to directly support the projects they depend on — a philosophy we fully endorse and promote
We acknowledge the recent wave of .NET projects moving toward commercial models and understand the concerns this raises within our community. Compared to other ecosystems like JavaScript or Python, the .NET community has historically seen less corporate adoption and financial support for open source projects.
This is a challenge we are actively working to address by:
Pushing corporations to directly sponsor and support the projects they rely on
Facilitating connections between maintainers and potential sponsors
Advocating for the value proposition of supporting open source within enterprise organizations
We believe the solution lies not in preventing commercialization, but in creating an ecosystem where maintainers can sustain their work — whether through corporate sponsorship, foundation support, or commercial models.
AutoMapper has been a valued member of the .NET Foundation, and we're grateful for the contributions Jimmy and the project's community have made to the .NET ecosystem. We wish Jimmy continued success as AutoMapper moves forward independently, and we remain supportive of his efforts to ensure these important projects thrive.
The .NET Foundation remains committed to supporting open source projects in our ecosystem and will continue working to create sustainable paths for project maintainers.
For questions about this announcement or the .NET Foundation's policies, please visit dotnetfoundation.org or contact us at [email protected]