Mono betas the Open Source route to .Net

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 7 May 2004 at 15:40

Novell has finally brought to beta the Mono developer framework. This allows programmers to write applications and web services based on Microsoft's .Net framework that will also run on Unix and Linux.

In fact Mono-built applications should be able to run on Linux, Novell's NetWare, Mac OS and Windows, and the environment is intended speed up development time and ease the production of APIs and SDKs for applications built this way.

Initially a project under Ximian, Novell acquired the company last year, and consequently Mono. And after three years in development, this first beta is its first public unveiling. A second beta is planned for June. With Microsoft updating its .Net technologies this year with Whidbey to version 1.2, Novell will follow this with Mono 1.2 appearing in the latter half of this year. Further revisions are also planned for 2005 and 2006.

Mono 1.0 will include core .NET-compliant technologies such as a C# compiler, a Common Language Runtime just-in-time compiler and a full suite of class libraries and implements both ADO.NET and ASP.NET. It will also be possible to embed a runtime environment into Mono-built applications.

Other .Net components are not as extensively developed for the current beta and some features such as System.EnterpriseServices and System.Management will not be supported in Mono as they will be made redundant with Longhorn, Microsoft's next version of Windows.

Mono 1.0 is available for free from www.go-mono.com.