When Novell’s new owner, Attachmate, announced that it was letting Miguel de Icaza, the founder and lead developer of Mono go, I assumed Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET was a dead development platform walking. Even after de Icaza launched his own company, Xamarin, to keep Mono going, I had little hopes Mono would survive. Well, it looks like I was wrong.
Xamarin has convinced SUSE–Attachmate’s Linux branch–to give it Mono’s intellectual property. In return, Xamarin will provide technical support to SUSE customers using Mono-based products, and assume stewardship of the Mono open source community project.
In a statement, Nils Brauckmann, president and general manager of SUSE, said, “This partnership is a triple win–a win for SUSE, a win for Xamarin, but most importantly, a win for our customers, users and community. Our partnership ensures SUSE customers continue to get the best support possible, enables the bright team at Xamarin to achieve success in their promising new Where Novell & SUSE Linux goes from here venture, and provides continuity of stewardship for the Mono open source community project in the very capable hands of its most passionate evangelists.”