Kevin Purdy

– Aug 28, 2024 5:15 pm UTC

Microsoft has donated the Mono Project, an open-source framework that brought its .NET platform to non-Windows systems, to the Wine community. WineHQ will be the steward of the Mono Project upstream code, while Microsoft will encourage Mono-based apps to migrate to its open source .NET framework.

As Microsoft notes on the Mono Project homepage, the last major release of Mono was in July 2019. Mono was “a trailblazer for the .NET platform across many operating systems” and was the first implementation of .NET on Android, iOS, Linux, and other operating systems.

Mono began as a project of Miguel de Icaza, co-creator of the GNOME desktop. De Icaza led Ximian (originally Helix Code), aiming to bring Microsoft’s then-new .NET platform to Unix-like platforms. Ximian was acquired by Novell in 2003.

Mono played a crucial role in de Icaza’s initiative to port Microsoft’s Silverlight, a plugin aimed at running rich-media applications akin to Flash, to Linux platforms. Novell advocated for the use of Mono to create iOS applications using C# and other .NET languages. In 2009, Microsoft extended its “Community Promise” to the .NET frameworks, thereby ensuring that Mono could thrive independently of Microsoft’s direct oversight.

By 2011, however, Novell was nearing its end, being absorbed and effectively becoming obsolete. During this period, de Icaza initiated Xamarin to promote Mono’s use on Android. Following this change, Novell (via its SUSE subsidiary) and Xamarin entered into an agreement allowing Xamarin to assume control over the intellectual property and clientele, integrating Mono within Novell/SUSE.

What implications does this development have for Mono and Wine? Initially, not much. Wine, which facilitates the operation of Windows applications on POSIX-compliant systems, already incorporates Mono in its fixes and features a custom Mono engine. By transferring Mono to Wine, Microsoft has effectively dispelled any lingering doubts regarding its influence over Mono. While today’s Microsoft, more conversant with open-source norms, has made this transition, it remains a significant, positive gesture regardless.