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Mono
Developed by Novell
Initial release June 30, 2004
Latest release 1. A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product 9. 1 / April 22, 2008 (2008-04-22); 52 days ago
OS Cross-platform
Genre Platform
License GPL, LGPL and MIT, or dual license
Website http://www.mono-project.com

Mono is a project led by Novell (formerly by Ximian) to create an Ecma standard compliant .NET compatible set of tools, including among others a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime. Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In computing cross-platform (also known as multi-platform) is a term used to refer to Computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function type or field of use In Computing, a platform describes some sort of Hardware architecture or Software framework (including Application frameworks, that allows A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a Free software license published by the Free Software The MIT License is a Free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT used by the MIT X Consortium. Dual-licensing is the practice of distributing Software under two different sets of terms and conditions A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Ximian was a company that provided Free software desktop applications for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform Ecma International (Ecma is an international private (membership-based non-profit Standards organization for information and communication systems C# (pronounced C Sharp is a Multi-paradigm A compiler is a Computer program (or set of programs that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another The Common Language Runtime (CLR is the Virtual machine component of Microsoft's. Mono can be run on Linux, BSD, UNIX, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows operating systems. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Solaris is a Unix -based Operating system introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992 as the successor to SunOS. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination

Microsoft has a version of . Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer NET available for FreeBSD, Windows and Mac OS X called the Shared Source CLI (Rotor). FreeBSD is a Unix-like free Operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD branch through The Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure (SSCLI previously codenamed Rotor, is Microsoft 's Shared source implementation of the CLI, Microsoft's shared source license may be insufficient for the needs of the community (it explicitly forbids commercial use). Shared Source is Microsoft 's framework for sharing Computer program Source code with third parties The Mono project has many of the same goals as the Portable.NET project. Part of the DotGNU project PortableNET is a free and Open source software initiative aiming to build a portable Toolchain and

The Mono runtime contains a just-in-time compilation (JIT) engine for a number of processors: x86, SPARC, PowerPC, ARM, S390 (in 32-bit and 64-bit mode), and x86-64, IA64 and SPARC for 64-bit modes. In Computing, just-in-time compilation ( JIT) also known as dynamic translation, is a technique for improving the runtime performance of a Computer See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal SPARC (from Scalable Processor Architecture is a RISC Microprocessor Instruction set architecture originally PowerPC is a RISC Instruction set architecture created by the 1991 Apple – IBM – Motorola alliance known as AIM The ARM architecture (previously the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture IBM System z9 is a line of IBM mainframes. It was announced on July 25 2005 and the first models x86-64 is a Superset of the x86 instruction set architecture. Itanium is the brand name for 64-bit Intel Microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64) The runtime will perform a just-in-time compilation to the machine's native code which is cached as the application runs. It is also possible to precache the native image before execution. For other supported systems not listed, an interpreter performs each byte code one by one without compiling the image to native code. In almost every condition the JIT method will outperform the interpreted method.

Contents

History

Miguel de Icaza became interested in . Miguel de Icaza (born c 1972 is a Mexican Free software programmer best known for starting the GNOME and Mono projects NET technology as soon as the . NET documents came out in December 2000. After looking at the byte code interpreter, he realized that there were no specifications for the metadata. In February 2001 de Icaza asked for the missing information on the metadata file format in the . NET mailing lists and at the same time started to work on a C# compiler written in C#, as an exercise in C#. In April 2001 ECMA published the missing file format, and at GUADEC (April 6 – April 8, 2001) de Icaza demonstrated the features of his compiler (which by then was able to parse itself). The GNOME Users And Developers European Conference, ( GUADEC, also known as The GNOME Conference) is an annual conference taking place in Europe, whose Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato in the Battle of Thapsus Events 217 - Roman Emperor Caracalla is Assassinated (and succeeded by his Praetorian Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar.

Internally at Ximian there was much discussion about building tools to increase productivity: making it possible to create more applications in less time and therefore reduce time and cost of development. Ximian was a company that provided Free software desktop applications for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform After a feasibility study, which clearly stated that it was possible to build the technology, Ximian reassigned staff from other projects and created the Mono team. Lacking the resources to build a full . NET replacement on their own, they formed the Mono open source project, which was announced on July 19, 2001 at the O'Reilly conference. Events 711 - Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by their king Roderic. Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly

Almost three years later, on June 30, 2004 Mono 1. Events 350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed by troops of the Usurper "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " 0 was released.

The logo of Mono features a monkey, mono being the Spanish word for monkey. A monkey is any member of either the New World monkeys or Old World monkeys two of the three groupings of Simian Primates the third group being The name relates to the monkeys and apes that are a central theme within Ximian, such as the GNOME Project foot, the Bonobo project (a OLE/COM like library used in GNOME created by Ximian) which is a species of ape related to chimpanzees and humans, the Novell Evolution (formerly Ximian Evolution) Project, and the Ximian logo itself. Evolution or Novell Evolution (formerly Ximian Evolution, prior to Novell 's 2003 acquisition of Ximian) is the official Personal information The Mono FAQ claims that the origin of the name is "We like monkeys. " For what it may be worth, "Ximian" is near-homophone of simian. A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning The simians ( Infraorder Simiiformes) are the "higher Primates quot familiar to most people the Monkeys and the Apes including

Current status and roadmap

Mono's current version is 1. 9. 1 (as of April 22, 2008). Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common [1] This version provides the core API of the .NET Framework as well as support for C# 2. 0 and Visual Basic. NET and C# 3. 0. LINQ to objects and XML is part of the distribution, but not LINQ to SQL. C# 3. 0 is now the default mode of operation for the C# compiler. While Windows Forms 1. 1 is supported, Windows Forms 2. 0 implementation is not complete. Complete API support for Windows Forms 2. 0 was announced on May 14, 2008 and is scheduled for inclusion in Mono 2. Events 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common 0 [2]. It is now possible to build and use the DLR with Mono. [1]

Implementation of .NET Framework 3.0 is under development under an experimental Mono subproject called Olive, but the availability of a Mono framework supporting . NET 3. 0 is still not planned yet. [3]

An open source implementation of Silverlight, called Moonlight, is now underway and is included in Mono 1. Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable Web browser Plugin that enables features such as Animation, Vector graphics and Moonlight is an upcoming free and open-source clone of the Microsoft Silverlight Runtime. 9. [4] The Silverlight 2. 0 . NET classes are implemented as part of the Olive module. Moonlight shipped as part of Mono 1. 2. 6 release.

Mono components

Mono consists of three groups of components:

  1. Core components
  2. Mono/Linux/GNOME development stack
  3. Microsoft compatibility stack.

The core components include the C# compiler, the virtual machine, and the base class libraries. These components are based on the Ecma-334 and Ecma-335 standards, allowing Mono to provide a standards compliant, free and open source CLI virtual machine. In Computer science, a virtual machine (VM is a Software implementation of a machine (computer that executes programs like a real machine

The Mono/Linux/GNOME development stack provide tools for application development while leveraging existing GNOME and Free and Open Source libraries. A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (for Free/Libre/Open Source Software) is software which is liberally licensed These include: Gtk# for GUI development, Mozilla libraries for working with the Gecko rendering engine, Unix integration libraries, database connectivity libraries, a security stack, and the XML schema language RelaxNG. Gtk# is a set of.NET bindings for the GTK+ GUI toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries. Gecko is a Layout engine currently developed by Mozilla Corporation, known as the layout engine of the Firefox web browser Mozilla Application In Computing, RELAX NG ( REgular LAnguage for XML Next Generation) is a schema language for XML, based on Murata Makoto 's RELAX Gtk# allows Mono applications to integrate into the Gnome desktop as native applications. The database libraries provide connectivity to MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Firebird, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL), Oracle, the object-relational database db4o, and many others. MySQL is a Relational database management system (RDBMS which has more than 11 million installations SQLite is a mostly ACID -compliant Relational database management system contained in a relatively small (~500 kB) C programming library PostgreSQL is an Object-relational database management system (ORDBMS Firebird (sometimes erroneously called FirebirdSQL is a Relational database management system offering many ANSI features In Computing, Open Database Connectivity ( ODBC) provides a standard Software API method for using Database management systems (DBMS Microsoft SQL Server is a Relational database management system (RDBMS produced by Microsoft. Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply Oracle) is a Relational database management system (RDBMS produced and marketed by db4o (database for objects is a high-performance embeddable Open source Object database for Java and. The Mono project tracks developing database components at its website.

The Microsoft compatibility stack provides a pathway for porting Windows . NET applications to Linux. This group of components include ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and Windows.Forms, among others. ADONET is a set of computer software components that can be used by programmers to access data and data services ASPNET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft, that Programmers can use to build dynamic Web sites Web applications Windows Forms is the name given to the Graphical user interface application programming interface (API included as a part of Microsoft's. As these components are not covered by ECMA standards, some of them remain subject to patent fears and concerns. Ecma International (Ecma is an international private (membership-based non-profit Standards organization for information and communication systems

Framework architecture

Simplified Mono architecture
Simplified Mono architecture

Class library

The class library provides a comprehensive set of facilities for application development. They are primarily written in C#, but thanks to the Common Language Specification they can be used by any . NET language. The class library is structured into namespaces, and deployed in shared libraries known as assemblies. When we speak of the . NET framework, we are primarily referring to this class library.

Namespaces and assemblies

Namespaces are a mechanism for logically grouping similar classes into a hierarchical structure. This prevents naming conflicts. The structure is implemented using dot-separated words, where the most common top-level namespace is System, such as System. IO and System. Net (a complete list can be found in Mono Documentation). There are other top-level namespaces as well, such as Accessibility and Windows. A user can define a namespace by placing elements inside a namespace block.

Assemblies are the physical packaging of the class libraries. These are . dll files, just as (but not to be confused with) Win32 shared libraries. Examples of assemblies are mscorlib. dll, System. dll, System. Data. dll and Accessibility. dll. Namespaces are often distributed among several assemblies and one assembly can be composed of several files.

Common Language Infrastructure and Common Language Specification

The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), or more commonly known as the Common Language Runtime, is implemented by the Mono executable. The runtime is used to execute compiled . NET applications. The common language infrastructure is defined by the ECMA standard ECMA-335. To run an application, you must invoke the runtime with the relevant parameters.

The Common Language Specification (CLS) is specified in chapter 6 of ECMA-335 and defines the interface to the CLI, such as conventions like the underlying types for Enum. The Mono compiler generates an image that conforms to the CLS. This is the Common Intermediate Language. The Mono runtime takes this image and runs it. The ECMA standard formally defines a library that conforms to the CLS as a framework.

Managed and unmanaged code

Within a native . NET/Mono application, all code is managed; that is, it is governed by the CLI's style of memory management and thread safety. Managed code is computer program code that executes under the management of a Virtual machine, unlike unmanaged code which is executed directly by the computer's Other . NET or Mono applications can use legacy code, which is referred to as unmanaged, by using the System. Runtime. InteropServices libraries to create C# bindings. Many libraries which ship with Mono use this feature of the CLI, such as Gtk#.

Related projects

There exist lots of projects related to Mono that extend Mono and allows developers to use Mono in their development environment. These projects include:

MonoDevelop: the Mono IDE

Main article: MonoDevelop

MonoDevelop is a free GNOME integrated development environment primarily designed for C# and other . MonoDevelop is an open source Integrated development environment for the Linux platform primarily targeted for the development of software that uses both the In Computing, an integrated development environment ( IDE) is a Software application that provides comprehensive facilities to Computer programmers NET languages such as Nemerle, Boo, and Java (via IKVM.NET). Nemerle is a high-level statically-typed Programming language for the. Boo is an object oriented, statically typed Programming language developed starting in 2003 which seeks to make use of the Common Language Infrastructure IKVMNET is an implementation of Java for Mono and the Microsoft. MonoDevelop was originally a port of SharpDevelop to Gtk#, but it has since evolved to meet the needs of Mono developers. SharpDevelop is a free and Open source IDE for the C#, Visual Basic. The IDE includes class management, built-in help, code completion, Stetic (a GUI designer), project support, and an integrated debugger.

The MonoDoc browser provides access to API documentation and code samples. The documentation browser uses wiki-style content management, allowing developers to edit and improve the documentation.

License

Mono is dual licensed by Novell, similar to other products such as Qt and the Mozilla Application Suite. Dual-licensing is the practice of distributing Software under two different sets of terms and conditions Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite, and Code named SeaMonkey) is a Cross-platform Mono's C# compiler and tools are released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) (starting with version 2. 0 of Mono, the Mono C# compiler source code will also be available under the MIT X11 license)[5], the runtime libraries under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and the class libraries under the MIT License. The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a Free software license published by the Free Software The MIT License is a Free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT used by the MIT X Consortium. These are all free software and open-source licenses and hence Mono is free and open-source software. Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified An open source license is a copyright License for Computer software that makes the source code available under terms that allow for modification and redistribution Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified Open source software (OSS began as a marketing campaign for Free software.

Developers contributing source code to Mono upstream must agree to distribute their code to Novell under a license that allows Novell to relicense the code under other licensing terms. In Computer science, source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements or declarations written in some Human-readable This practice is similar to copyright assignment agreements used in other free and open source software projects (used in many GNU projects and by MySQL), however, this method allows the developer to retain copyright of the original work while still preserving Novell's ability to commercially license Mono for specific customers that require different licensing terms than what is provided in general release versions (such as running Mono in embedded firmware environments). MySQL is a Relational database management system (RDBMS which has more than 11 million installations [6]

Mono and Microsoft’s patents

Mono’s implementation of those components of the . NET stack not submitted to the ECMA for standardization has been the source of patent violation concerns for much of the life of the project. In particular, discussion has taken place about whether Microsoft could destroy the Mono project through patent suits.

The base technologies submitted to the ECMA, and therefore also the Unix/Gnome-specific parts, may be non-problematic. The concerns primarily relate to technologies developed by Microsoft on top of the . NET Framework, such as ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows Forms, i. ASPNET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft, that Programmers can use to build dynamic Web sites Web applications ADONET is a set of computer software components that can be used by programmers to access data and data services Windows Forms is the name given to the Graphical user interface application programming interface (API included as a part of Microsoft's. e. parts composing Mono’s Windows compatibility stack. These technologies are today not fully implemented in Mono and not required for developing Mono-applications. Not providing patented capabilities would weaken interoperability, but it would still be possible to provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono. The free software community is an informal term referring to the users and developers of Free software as well as supporters of the Free software movement. This has been summed up by Richard Stallman[7]:

Mono is a free implementation of Microsoft's language C#. Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16 1953 often abbreviated " rms " is an American software freedom activist Microsoft has declared itself our enemy and we know that Microsoft is getting patents on some features of C#. So I think it's dangerous to use C#, and it may be dangerous to use Mono. There’s nothing wrong with Mono. Mono is a free implementation of a language that users use. It's good to provide free implementations. We should have free implementations of every language. But, depending on it is dangerous, and we better not do that.

On November 2, 2006, Microsoft and Novell announced a joint agreement whereby Microsoft agreed to not sue Novell’s customers for patent infringement. Events 1570 - A Tidal wave in the North Sea devastates the coast from Holland to Jutland, killing more than 1000 Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. [8] According to Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza,[9] this agreement extends to Mono but only for Novell developers and customers. It was criticized by the free software community because it violates the principles of giving equal rights to all users of a particular program (see Novell and their Patent Agreement with Microsoft). The free software community is an informal term referring to the users and developers of Free software as well as supporters of the Free software movement. Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE

For more details on this topic, see Patents and free software. Opposition to Software patents is widespread in the Free software community.

Software developed with Mono

Banshee (music player)
Banshee (music player)

The following are programs that use the Mono API and C#. Banshee is a media player that is built upon Mono and Gtk#. It uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding and decoding various

F-Spot photo management program
F-Spot photo management program
GNOME Do
GNOME Do

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Mono 1.9 Release Notes
  2. ^ The Big Finale. Retrieved on 2008-05-14. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the
  3. ^ Mono Project Roadmap - Mono
  4. ^ Moonlight. Mono Team. Retrieved on 2007-09-01. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 462 - Possible start of first Byzantine indiction cycle.
  5. ^ Mono C# Compiler Under MIT X11 License. Novell Inc (2008-04-08). 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 217 - Roman Emperor Caracalla is Assassinated (and succeeded by his Praetorian
  6. ^ For more information about the licensing, see Mono FAQ: Licensing
  7. ^ Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement, Zagreb; 2006-03-09
  8. ^ Novell (2006-11-02). Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1570 - A Tidal wave in the North Sea devastates the coast from Holland to Jutland, killing more than 1000 "Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and SUSE Linux Interoperability and Support". Press release. A news release, media release, press release or press statement is a written or recorded Communication directed at members of the News Retrieved on 2006-11-02. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1570 - A Tidal wave in the North Sea devastates the coast from Holland to Jutland, killing more than 1000
  9. ^ Statement on the blog of Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza regarding patent protection for Mono (2006-11-04). Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani Retrieved on 2006-11-06. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 355 - Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with
  10. ^ FAQ - MonoDevelop

Notes

External links

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