More recently they wanted to monetize C#, but found it best to make the language itself free and open source while monetizing through complementary products.
When did they ever want to monetize C#? That is pure FUD. It's been an ecma standard from the start with multiple compiler implementations including Mono since very early 2000s.
Yeah but Mono wasn't really close to the official implementation in terms of performance or completeness.
Where is the evidence to support this? Utter fabrication.
I'm sure they still make good money from MSDN subscriptions but the value of that is deeply tied in with Microsoft's own platform (Windows, SQL Server, Azure, etc).
>More recently they wanted to monetize C#,
what? src?
What are complementary products for c#?
Azure, Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange, MS office, Dynamics, anything else in the enterprise suite where C# is a good integrator.