Well, this is surprising isn't it? Microsoft are handing over the Mono Project to the Wine developers with a thank you note.
What is it? Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. It is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime.
Posted on the Mono website, along with a GitHub post, Microsoft's Jeff Schwartz announced:
The Mono Project (mono/mono) (‘original mono’) has been an important part of the .NET ecosystem since it was launched in 2001. Microsoft became the steward of the Mono Project when it acquired Xamarin in 2016.
The last major release of the Mono Project was in July 2019, with minor patch releases since that time. The last patch release was February 2024.
We are happy to announce that the WineHQ organization will be taking over as the stewards of the Mono Project upstream at wine-mono / Mono · GitLab (winehq.org). Source code in existing mono/mono and other repos will remain available, although repos may be archived. Binaries will remain available for up to four years.
Microsoft maintains a modern fork of Mono runtime in the dotnet/runtime repo and has been progressively moving workloads to that fork. That work is now complete, and we recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET which includes work from this fork.
We want to recognize that the Mono Project was the first .NET implementation on Android, iOS, Linux, and other operating systems. The Mono Project was a trailblazer for the .NET platform across many operating systems. It helped make cross-platform .NET a reality and enabled .NET in many new places and we appreciate the work of those who came before us.
Thank you to all the Mono developers!
Not only have Microsoft done a seemingly pretty good thing here, their acknowledgement of the Wine team and their work is also really nice to see.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
DryPapHmrBro Aug 27
Nateman1000 Aug 27
How will Wine handle it, will they pull in changes from .NET's fork back into Mono?
Microsoft trusting an important project to none other than WINE?!?!?On the other hand he makes it very clear that it is outdated and everyone should switch to their modern fork. So yeah…
Mountain Man Aug 27
So Microsoft is 100% open sourcing the code with no strings attached?
It was always open source. They just bought the company who created* and maintained, it, moved the devs over to their own fork and closed down the original, graciously allowing the wine team to maintain their own fork of the old code, as if they needed a permission, lol. It's a good PR move (also for Wine, mind you) but nothing else.
(*) actually it seems it changed hands a few times, I confused Ximian with Xamarin
Last edited by pb on 27 August 2024 at 6:51 pm UTC
Microsoft trusting an important project to none other than WINE?!?!?On the other hand he makes it very clear that it is outdated and everyone should switch to their modern fork. So yeah…
Yup. It sounds a lot like "let's get rid of old useless code we would have otherwise unceremoniously discarded by offloading it onto the FOSS community".
That way it sounds like they are being good and donating, instead of having to announce its closure and making it sound like being acquired killed the project.
Last edited by Aeder on 27 August 2024 at 7:12 pm UTC
This. It’s nicely done I guess but they are saying dump it and use .netMicrosoft trusting an important project to none other than WINE?!?!?On the other hand he makes it very clear that it is outdated and everyone should switch to their modern fork. So yeah…
So Microsoft is 100% open sourcing the code with no strings attached? No "Gotcha!" waiting to be unleashed at some point in the future? I'm naturally suspicious of anything coming out of Redmond. It's not in their nature to be altruistic.
From my reading of the statement, they're not being entirely good natured here. This part being key:
Microsoft maintains a modern fork of Mono runtime in the dotnet/runtime repo and has been progressively moving workloads to that fork. That work is now complete, and we recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET which includes work from this fork.
Which sounds an awful lot like "use the MS fork and not this one", remembering that Microsoft has kind of a terrible Linux history on the .Net front. IMHO this all could be alright-to-good news, but I wouldn't assume it is either.
Last edited by dibz on 27 August 2024 at 8:35 pm UTC
Let's get down to it, they don't have much more options.
I'm almost certain MS plans was to make win 12 a montly subscription until some rumors spread about it. They'll probably try to do it with win 13, but it won't go as planned if they continue to treat customers the way they do.
On the other hand it's all good for Linux, they are making the "desktop year of linux" happening way faster than expected with this actual trend ;)
Last edited by Jahimself on 27 August 2024 at 8:37 pm UTC
I guess it is better than the alternative, since they could just unilaterally drop it. But mostly it raises questions about how Microsoft can just directly buy direct competitors and choose what to do with them.
Is the Mono project still needed now that .NET itself supports Linux?
Mono is open source for the legacy .Net SDK. So, Mono is just needed for older applications. As you are indicating, the newer .Net already supports Linux and Mono doesn't support it.
Kind of feels like Mono is a corpse they are graciously allowing the Wine people to bury for them.
But... WINE has put a lot of effort over the years into supporting programs for old defunct Windows releases. Microsoft no longer needs it, and they're recommending all new code to use their modern fork, but these are like receiving the exam answers ahead of time. Now WINE no longer needs to guess and reverse engineer Mono related code, saving them time and money.
This doesn't matter at all. If Microsoft killed it, it would just get forked. If Microsoft kept it, nothing would change, or they'd screw it up and it would just get forked. If Microsoft transferred it (here)... oh wow, we could have just forked it!
And I want you to pay special attention to that part where they talk about migrating all your stuff to use the proprietary .NET instead, because it has all of the benefits of Mono (????), or something. Sounds a lot like typical Microsoft anticompetitiveness and "please bro use my stuff bro" to me.
Just ignore it. Big corporations aren't your friends.
I confused Ximian with Xamarin
That's OK, it was basically the same people/company.
Kind of feels like Mono is a corpse they are graciously allowing the Wine people to bury for them.
That's the strange thing.
Mono is no corpse.
Unity uses it for their game engine.
Android uses it for compatibility.
Basically anyone who isn't Microsoft uses it if they want to participate in the Microsoft dominated dotnet space.
That Microsoft doesn't want it isn't strange though.
It's by design a thorn in their side.
They build the entirety of dotnet to replace Java of which they just had gotten an anti-trust conviction for the way they had tried to pound it into the ground, because it was portable.
Mono is portable(and open source) dotnet.
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