Mono's future in doubt?
Attachmate, which has taken over the once-mighty Novell, has reportedly started to shed an unknown number of US-based staff. This could affect the Mono project led by Miguel de Icaza, co-founder of the Gnome project, creator of the Gnumeric spreadsheet, and founder of Ximian. Mono aims to provide an ECMA-standard open source implementation of Microsoft's .Net infrastructure. This effort, which should make Linux more attractive to businesses, has led to some hostility, particularly from the Microsoft-hating faction of the free software movement.
An unconfirmed post, Attachmate lays off Mono employees, at InternetNews.com includes the following quotation:
"We have re-established Nuremburg [sic] as the headquarters of our SuSE business unit and the prioritization and resourcing of certain development efforts - including Mono - will now be determined by the business unit leaders there," said Jeff Hawn, Chairman and CEO of The Attachmate Group in a statement sent to InternetNews.com. "This change led to the release of some US based employees today. As previously stated, all technology roadmaps remain intact with resources being added to those in a manner commensurate with customer demand."
What these "business unit leaders" think about Mono is unknown. However, SuSE (Linux) and Ximian (Mono) were separate companies before they were taken over by Novell. Now it's no longer part of Novell, SuSE might want to revert to something more like its previous status.
It's not clear whether Mono could stand on its own, since there is generally little or no money to be made from open source software, apart from selling support. Mono does have some non-free commercial developments, mainly MonoTouch for Mac OS X and Mono for Android. These provide developers with a modern C#/.Net/Visual Studio development system for Apple iOS and Google Android devices. Neither product runs on Linux.
The Mono Wiki says: "Mono is included in several Linux distributions including openSuse and Ubuntu. Notable projects that use Mono include Second Life, Mindtouch Deki Wiki, imeem, VistaDB, and Unity game engine."
There is also a Mono version of Microsoft's Silverlight, called Moonlight. This aims to enable Linux users to access Silverlight content, including streaming media. Microsoft provided a "will not sue" covenent for Moonlight, which expires on September 1, 2011.
This agreement followed on from a broader interoperability deal between Novell and Microsoft, signed in 2006, under which Microsoft agreed to "officially recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions. Additionally, Microsoft will distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage as well as the collaborative work between the two companies."