Well, this is surprising isn't it? Microsoft are handing over the Mono Project to the Wine developers with a thank you note.
  • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
    4·
    2 years ago

    Donates or “donates”? As “all yours” or as in “it’s ours but you do the work”?

    • anamethatisnt@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 years ago

      As in
      “We’ve finished taking all we need from the Mono project and implemented it into our proprietary .NET implementation for Linux, Android and iOS. Instead of getting flack for killing off Mono (which is open source and would’ve been forked anyways) we graciously give this old husk to the Wine project. We recommend that active Mono users and maintainers of Mono-based app frameworks migrate to .NET. kthnxbye!”

      Good thing that it went to Wine I guess, as they do lots of work to get old Windows programs up and running in Linux and that often involves Mono.

      • LeFantome@programming.dev
        1·
        2 years ago

        The “fork” is the real version of Mono and Microsoft is not giving it up.

        The repository managed by “The Mono Project” still targets .NET Framework. Microsoft does not care about the official version of that. Why would they want to manage an Open Source replica of it.

        In some ways though, this is good. Nobody should be seeing the Mono Project as a viable cross-platform development framework at this point. It is nothing more than a support layer for running legacy software that was originally Windows only. That makes it a good fit for Wine.

        If you want what Mono used to be, a cross-platform application framework, you can just use the actual .NET from Microsoft. It includes the Mono runtime for targeting mobile platforms and Microsoft continues to actively develop it. They are not passing control of that to anybody.

    • embed_me@programming.dev
      0·
      2 years ago

      Not much. There used to be this fear of Microsoft copyrighting Mono for reimplementing their stuff on Linux. For that reason, Mono was avoided by linux app developers. But since MS had acquired the company that made and developed Mono and they have also open-sourced .NET and everything, this does not mean much.

      • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
        0·
        2 years ago

        For that reason, Mono was avoided by linux app developers. But since MS had acquired the company that made and developed Mono

        “You don’t like it? Fine then, we buy it and force it on you!”

        Classic Microshit.

        • LeFantome@programming.dev
          0·
          2 years ago

          No.

          Microsoft maintains what is essentially the “real” version of Mono within their official .NET project. It is up to version 8.

          The version of Mono represents by “The Mono Project” still targets .NET Framework ( stuck on version 4.x for years now ). Microsoft does not care about the real version, nevermind the Open Source replica.

          What Microsoft is “donating” is pure legacy. It is a good fit for Wine though.