Microsoft has handed Mono, the open-source .NET framework, over to the Wine project — a move that’s surprising if only as a reminder that Mono still exists!
An announcement was added to the official Mono website earlier today, with Microsoft describing the project as “a trailblazer for the .NET platform across many operating systems [which] helped make cross-platform .NET a reality and enabled .NET in many new places”.
It’s gifting (some might say dumping) the Mono Project to Wine’s developers. New source repos are already online, and Microsoft will keep most existing Mono repos online (some archived) and binaries will be available for 4 years or so.
But they urge developers using Mono to migrate — just not to the new upstream home of Mono.
Instead, Microsoft “recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET” which includes work from their own ‘modern fork’ of Mono, which is where most development has taken place in recent years.
For those wishing to continue with Mono, the project will now be maintained by the Wine team.
Monotonous Fears
Many, many moons ago I used to blog (regularly) about a Mono-based music player called Banshee. It was a terrific little app and super popular with Linux users – so much so Ubuntu replaced Rhythmbox with it for a few years.
And on the Linux desktop, Banshee was arguably the most visible of all software using the C# mono framework (it was lowercase ‘m’ in those days). Other apps using it during that era included GNOME Do (later Docky), Pinta, and Tomboy.
However, mono-based anything on the Linux desktop generated controversy, column inches, and temperate climes under many collars. A puritanical FOSS website began referring to this blog (more so me) as a ‘mono apologist’ for writing about apps using it1.
Why were people in the open-source community so wary of Mono? I mean, it was created by Miguel de Icaza — the Miguel de Icaza, creator of GNOME — in 2001 as an open-source project developed by a company he co-founded, Ximian.
Yet Mono was deeply contentious because it re-implemented parts of Microsoft’s .NET framework, the C# language, and related libraries. The concern was if developers and Linux distributions used it (even a little) they’d be open to patent lawsuits from Microsoft.
Admittedly, those concerns felt more real back then. Microsoft of that era had a reputation for aggressively protecting its patents, plus it had a bit beef with Linux in general. So the ‘mono is a trap’, refrain wasn’t as hysterical as it seemed.
Ubuntu wasn’t concerned by this. It shipped Mono dependencies and apps, including Banshee, gBrainy and Tomboy, in its default install. But in 2012 an effort to remove Mono from the default install succeeded, and all Mono apps removed.
Ximian was acquired by Novell, later bought by the Attatchmate Group Inc who promptly fired most Novell staff including de Icaza and the rest of the Mono team. So de Icaza formed a new company, Xamarin, rehired the old staff, and work on Mono resumed.
Completing the circle, Xamarian was finally acquired by Microsoft (where de Icaza worked until 2022), Mono was relicensed to MIT.
The afeared (not a typo, it’s ye olde English) patent boogeyman never appeared, and later licensing rejigs around C# in general ameliorated those concerns pretty completely. Mono remains in use in many Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android apps, but on Linux it never took off.
Now, it moves on again, this time back in to the open-source fold proper, under the auspices of the very talented folks at Wine project.
Non-Monogamous Future
What does today’s announcement mean for the future of Mono?
Potentially a lot.
Under Microsoft’s stewardship the project did remain relevant (it’s properly cross platform, is used in many Android and iOS apps, etc) but development has been slow (last major release in 2019) as Microsoft favoured its own fork, and .NET in general.
But with a renewed focus from Wine developers (versed in open-source implementations of proprietary stacks), and the old patent boogeyman banished, a revival of sorts could be about to begin — which wouldn’t be a bad thing.
- These days, I’m billed as a “Microsoft apologist” for covering Ubuntu on WSL (⊙.☉)7 ↩︎