Netduino for my first product

I have built a small prototype successfully based on the Netduino Plus 2 board. Now, I'm in the process of creating my first product (small one) based on Netduino. I'm a S/W developer and this would be my first time getting into the H/W product space. I have a few questions, which I'm hoping could get answered here in the community:

1. Looking at the license of Netduino, it seems, I can safely build my board based on Netduino and still have my product design closed source. Is this correct? (but still give credit to Netduino)

2. If I build my own board, then, my guess is, that before the chip is soldered on the board, it needs to be programmed with NETMF, Netduino libraries and my code. How is it done? Any pointers would be great.

3. Alternatively, I can have a 3.3V RS232 interface on the board and using FTDI cable, I should be able to program the microcontroller using serial port after the chip is soldered. I have seen on MFDeploy, the option for Serial, but have never tried before. Is it possible? If yes, can someone outline the steps.

Please do point out errors in the above thought process. I have manage some fund to get the first batch out for this ,and would like to use it carefully.

There are a number of posts discussing this:

http://forums.netdui...roject/?p=36540

http://forums.netdui...s-onto-own-pcb/

From what I remember reading over the years, you can use the designs and keep your design closed but you need to acknowledge that the work is derived from Netduino.  The design is open source so you are free to use it in your product.

You do not necessarily need to program the chips before they are fixed to a board.  You will need to add connections / supporting electronics to allow the microcontroller to be programmed in situ.

Hope this helps,

Mark

Thanks Nevyn. I did see the posts, but they do not exactly answer the queries. Thanks for your help. I will take it forward from here.