Ximian To Deliver Mono 1.0 Release Candidate By Year's End

Ximian executives said the company plans to deliver a preview of its open-source implementation of Microsoft's .Net for Linux, Unix and Windows in September, and a release candidate of version 1.0 by year's end.

The releases come under the Mono Project, a community initiative spearheaded by Ximian and launched in 2001 to develop an open-source, Linux-based version of the Microsoft .Net development platform. The project aims to to give developers open-source tools for developing and running .Net applications and XML-based Web services on Linux and Unix.

Ximian, a developer of desktop and server applications geared at enabling enterprise Linux adoption, announced the release of Mono v0.25 in July.

At the XML Web Services One conference in Boston Wednesday, open-source guru and Ximian CTO Miguel de Icaza said the company's acquisition by Novell last week won't affect the Mono Project's agenda.

Last March, de Icaza said he expected to deliver the bulk of the .Net Framework clone for Linux in September. He also said then that the open-source implementation will support Microsoft ASP.Net technologies in the Windows 2000/2003 servers.

Instant-messaging ISVs including Winfessor and and Tipic currently use Mono in their code, and OpenLink Software is using the code in its Virtuoso 3.0 Universal Server Web services release. While many developers are using the code for development, the final packaged 1.0 version for open-source developers will follow after the release candidate in 2004.

Also at the Web Services conference, Microsoft Web services architect Don Box exchanged quips with de Icaza about Ximian's absorption into Novell, a proprietary software company.

During his highly technical discussion about the Web services-oriented architecture of the future, Box kidded that he has been trying to recruit the Ximian CTO to Microsoft for some time.

"It doesn't do enough damage. You're capable of so much more," Box said, alluding to de Icaza's move to Novell and into the commercial software world. "If you're going to work for a large corporation, it may as well be [Microsoft], the most evil one."

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