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.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: LoudTechieMm, I was suspicious of that press release, but perhaps not nearly suspicious enough. So if their claim that everyone is/will be using their fork of Mono rather than the main version they're asking WINE to maintain is false, then . . . I dunno. It's not like they can force the WINE people to maintain it, or would have been able to stop them from maintaining a fork if they wanted to. It all seems kind of amicable (assuming the WINE people are even aware this is happening), but at the same time like nothing much is actually going on.Quoting: Purple Library GuyKind 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.
I assure you they do know.
The press release mentions that wine's fork Wine-mono will become Mono.
This is handing over a trademark and possibly a signing key.
The WINE people know about this and potentially extracted concessions from Microsoft of it.
RIP
Silverlight
Windows Phone / Nokia
Cortana
Zune
Groove
Kinect
ETC..
Last edited by TightRope on 28 August 2024 at 7:18 pm UTC
TheRiddick Aug 28
Caldathras Aug 29
Quoting: TheRiddickMaybe this will lead to more applications that rely on NET to work. In particular all those mod managers that hate working under WINE.Odd. I have no problems running Mod Organizer 2 with Fallout: New Vegas under Wine-GE. It's an older version, mind you. In fact, I have more problems running it under native Windows on the same laptop.
Come to think of it, does MO2 need .NET?
TheRiddick Aug 29
Quoting: CaldathrasCome to think of it, does MO2 need .NET?
There are other mod managers that have issues such as those for dragon age or mech warrior and several others. Also there are tools like xedit that still have odd behaviour issues under Wine and many other tools. Just loose bits of NET that aren't being handled right.
I just happened to look up the Mono project under Wine and now I see how big a thing this actually is.
The wine people now control Mono main and this patent pledge remains.
The wine project bought itself some minimal protection against microsoft patent strikes.
They've now a part of their project they can safely update without threading on patented toes.
I'm currently not aware if they would be allowed to add lgplv2 code to mono, but at least they can dodge microsoft patents.
Edit: I read the patent pledge a little better and it doesn't apply to new stuff(or more accurately to things not written by xamarin and/or microsoft.)
Last edited by LoudTechie on 9 September 2024 at 5:07 am UTC
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