Open-Sourced Based Mono Project Gets An Upgrade

The Mono Project, a Novell-sponsored open-source version of Microsoft's .Net, has released a version of the software with new autoconfiguration capabilities that makes deploying Web-based applications easier.

Version 1.1.1 users wanting to port a .Net application no longer have to run and configure a new instance of that application for each user.

"In the past, you had to manually register every application you wanted to deploy with the system. But one of the nice things we have done is moved to more of a PHP-like deployment model where now all you have to do is drop a file in the Unix directory and it is taken care of," says Miguel de Icaza, who developed Mono.

Another advantage is the improvements allows a single instance of Mono to run multiple Mono-based applications using the Apache Web server.

De Icaza says his team is making good progress on a complete implementation of Windows Forms, a forms package that allows developers to fully exploit the graphical user interface features of Windows.

"We are now on schedule for a release with the full implementation of Mono with Windows Forms in the first half of next year," de Icaza says. "From what we see, [Windows Forms] is the most asked-for feature among developers working on smart clients."

With this latest development cycle, according to de Icaza, developers of the Mono Project have adopted a series of practices and techniques to help them bring more stability to the software over the long term.

"What we are doing is similar to what the Linux kernel team did with Version 2.6--namely stabilize it so you can eliminate these periods of months or even a year to bring stability to a new release," de Icaza says.

The development team has largely brought greater stability to the product by adding significantly more regression testing. Virtually every piece of code written for Mono is run through its own series of tests to ensure it works compatibly with all key applications.

Because the Mono Project is a member of ECMA, an international standards body, de Icza says he plans to take a close look at the submissions made by Microsoft as part of its attempt to get the group to endorse the Office file formats as standards.

"If [Microsoft is] as serious with this as they were with C#, it will be good news for everyone," he says.