Mono Project to bring .NET to Linux
Source: Geek.com
A project called Mono has been initiated by the Open Source community via the Linux software company Ximian to port Microsoft's .NET development platform to Linux. The project includes creation of a .NET development environment as well as the run-time environment to run applications developed on Windows systems.
Mono tools will be compatible with the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and the C# language that Microsoft submitted to ECMA. Success in this effort will let applications developed for .NET be portable between Linux and Windows.
The project is not without its difficulties. To avoid intellectual property infringement, the development tools must be written to the published standards without reference to Microsoft's source code. Then the development team has to build a compiler for C#, a CLI, and a class library. All of them must be compatible with the Microsoft equivalents.
