Novell yesterday took the wraps off a test version of Mono, an open source development platform that allows the creation of .NET applications that can run on Linux and Unix as well as Windows machines.

Mono opens the way towards cross-platform interoperability for emerging .NET applications and environments while allowing developers to write in higher level, richer programming languages. The project is the brainchild of Miguel de Icaza, who joined Novell when it acquired his company, Ximian, last year. As with many software projects, Mono is behind schedule. Originally Ximian (as was) talked about the delivery of Mono sometime in 2002. This date has gradually been pushed back until later this quarter.

On arrival, Mono 1.0 promises to incorporate key .NET-compliant components, including a C# compiler, a Common Language Runtime just-in-time compiler and a full suite of class libraries. The development platform will help coders to write rich client, Web services and server-side applications and deploy them on Linux, NetWare, Mac OS and Windows. Propeller heads can download Mono 1.0 Beta 1 and find more about the project here. ®

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