A version 2.0 of the development framework has been released by Mono, the project that brought Microsoft's C# and .Net to Linux. A runtime system for C# is offered by this framework and Visual Basic code, instead of the Windows, could be run on the Linux operating system through this development framework. However, the complete .Net environment cannot be imitated by it. 

The Mono project site, on Monday started providing the code for downloading. Now Novell would sponsor Mono, with Miguel de Icaza becoming a VP of development at Novell from project leader initially. 

De Icaza reported in an interview, “The goal is to get Windows developers to move to Linux. By allowing them to use the development tools with which they're familiar, such as Microsoft's Visual Studio and the .Net languages, to develop applications that can run on both Windows and Linux. 

“Mono 2.0 includes the Mono Migration Analyzer, which dissects the executable code of a .Net application and offers feedback on how much work it will take to make it Linux-ready. Surprisingly, many Windows Server applications can migrate to Linux servers and run in the Mono framework without much adaptation. It's the desktop applications that are tricky,” de Icaza added. 

By taking in concentration the 6,000 analyzer reports, it has been found that nearly 45% of Windows desktop applications can operate out of the box on Linux in the Mono 2.0 framework. Furthermore, 17% to 18% can be rejiggered to run on Linux, which according to Icaza is “a week’s worth of work.” 

With three months of work, another 20% can become Linux applications and the remainder, without a major reengineering of the application, is extremely tough to convert. 

.Net APIs, such as ASP.Net for building Active Server Pages, a Microsoft interactive Web page technology, and ADO.Net 2.0, a database access technology, are all supported by Mono 2.0. However, the Microsoft Windows Foundation, the combined API that covered SOAP, Windows binary, transactions, and other methods of communicating between Windows applications are not supported by Mono 2.0. 

 “Mono has enjoyed a growing acceptance among game programmers and other groups that started out learning Windows tools but now want to transfer that knowledge to the Linux environment, without learning another toolset,” informed Icaza.  

Basically, Mono is open source code provided under the license of LGPL, which is a version of the Free Software Foundation's GPL license. Bases for producing applications are represented by Mono runtime, which can run in either the Windows or Linux camp. 

De Icaza concluded, “The runtime can be used in producing code that will run on UNIX, Mac OS X, and Solaris systems as well.”