A long, weird FOSS circle ends as Microsoft donates Mono to Wine project

Microsoft has donated the Mono Undertaking, an open-source framework that introduced its .NET platform to non-Home windows techniques, to the Wine group. WineHQ shall be the steward of the Mono Project upstream code, whereas Microsoft will encourage Mono-based apps emigrate to its open supply .NET framework.

As Microsoft notes on the Mono Project homepage, the final main launch of Mono was in July 2019. Mono was “a trailblazer for the .NET platform throughout many working techniques” and was the primary implementation of .NET on Android, iOS, Linux, and different working techniques.

Ximian, Novell, SUSE, Xamarin, Microsoft—now Wine

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

Mono was key to de Icaza’s efforts to get Microsoft’s Silverlight, a browser plug-in for “interactive wealthy media purposes” (i.e., a Flash competitor), onto Linux techniques. Novell pushed Mono as a way to develop iOS apps with C# and different .NET languages. Microsoft applied its “Community Promise” to its .NET standards in 2009, confirming its willingness to let Mono flourish exterior its particular management.

By 2011, nevertheless, Novell, on its method to being acquired into obsolescence, was not doing a lot with Mono, and de Icaza began Xamarin to push Mono for Android. Novell (by means of its SUSE subsidiary) and Xamarin reached an agreement through which Xamarin would take over the IP and prospects, utilizing Mono inside Novell/SUSE.

Microsoft open-sourced most of .NET in 2014, then took it additional, acquiring Xamarin entirely in 2016, placing Mono underneath an MIT license, and bundling Xamarin choices into numerous open supply tasks. Mono now exists as a repository which will sometime be archived, although Microsoft guarantees to maintain binaries round for no less than 4 years. Those that wish to maintain utilizing Mono are directed to Microsoft’s “modern fork” of the project inside .NET.

What does this imply for Mono and Wine? Not a lot at first. Wine, a compatibility layer for Home windows apps on POSIX-compliant techniques, has already made use of Mono code in fixes and has its own Mono engine. By donating Mono to Wine, Microsoft has, at a minimal, erased the final little bit of concern anybody might need had concerning the firm’s management of the mission. It is a very completely different, open-source-conversant Microsoft making this transfer, in fact, however regardless, it is a good gesture.