Welcome!

Open Source Authors: Bob Gourley, Maureen O'Gara, Adrian Bridgwater, John Cowan, Hovhannes Avoyan

Related Topics: Open Source, .NET, Linux

Open Source: Article

Mono Goes to Beta

Mono Goes to Beta
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
May 7, 2004 12:00 AM EDT
Reads:
 20,359
Novell has posted the first of two proposed public betas of Mono 1, the open source version of Microsoft's .NET development platform that it assumed sponsorship of when it bought Ximian, the desktop start-up.

Mono is supposed to make it possible for Linux and Unix developers to build and deploy cross-platform .NET applications.

The beta is the first release to split Mono into 30-odd packages for better distribution granularity, Novell said. It also includes the Global Assembly Cache for the first time.

Evidently Novell is expecting the beta to wrap up later this quarter.

Mono 1.0 includes a C Sharp compiler, a Common Language Runtime JIT compiler and a full suite of class libraries.

The widgetry is supposed to offer Linux developers a superior environment of "unprecedented" productivity. They can write rich client, Web services and server-side programs and deploy them on Linux, NetWare, the Mac OS and Windows. The tools used to create product APIs and SDKs are language-independent across multiple operating systems.

Mono isn't all of the .NET Framework, just the parts that Microsoft gave to ECMA, and ECMA in turn gave to ISO for standardization. Although patents are involved, Microsoft is supposed to be letting anyone who wants to, for whatever reason, implement the stuff for free.

There are two stacks of APIs in Mono: a Unix, Linux, Gnome Mono stack and a set that's compatible with .NET Framework 1.1 that supports ASP.NET (Web services and Web forms), ADO.NET and other components.

There are preview packages for Mono 2.0 in the beta with System.Windows.Forms support.

Novell is eating its own dog food and using Mono to develop the iFolder 3.0 file system and the F-Spot photo management program.

Mono runs on Red Hat 9 and the Fedora Core 1, SUSE 9 and SLES 8 and Windows 2000 and XP.

See www.go-mono.com.

Published May 7, 2004 – Reads 20,359
Copyright © 2004 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

Comments (0)

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.