[Mono-list] Re: Ten questions regarding mono-1.0 - Was: I'm Confused... when is a class really 'Completed'?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> 1. When is Mono 1.0 going to be released?

When we reach a level of stability in a set of components.  

Mono 1.0 will not be a full .NET Framework replacement, we will have to
decide which components are ready for production use, and which ones are
not.  The most recent developments are likely going to remain under
heavy development for another six months (like Windows.Forms).

> 2. I know that WinForms is not going to be ready for that version, but what
> other features are going to be missing/excluded?

That is something we will have to decide when we feel comfortable with
releasing Mono 1.0.  

Our current plan is Mono 1.0 would be:

	* ECMA components (C#, CLI, core class libraries).

	* Base .NET classes (corlib, system, ado.net, asp.net webforms).

	* Supporting tools (ilasm, security tools, gacutil, etc).

> 3. What ADO.NET providers will be supported? Will they be all
> feature-complete?

Those who are stable and useful for productionuse.

> 4. Will ASP.NET support xcopy deployment model for binaries created with
> Windows/CLR in 1.0?

It already supports that (modulo bugs, and things we might have
missed).  So the more people testing this, and filing bug reports and
contributing code, the better.

> 5. Will VB.NET/MC++ and other languages be supported?

VB.NET might be available as an early beta, but C# is the only stable
one at this point I feel.

> 6. Will GUI debugging of ASP.NET code (requests executing in the server
> context) be supported in 1.0?

Not likely.

> 7. Will mono be more like .net-1.0 or .net-1.1 in terms of API compliance?
> What about applications that rely on a particular version of the runtime?
> Will it be user-selectable?

Depending on when we ship, we might ship 1.0 and 1.1 libraries, or if
too late, only 1.1 

> 8. What about documentation? I know CLR docs are there for download, but
> what about documentation for mono-specific features?

We are working on the documentation, you are welcome to join us in the
effort.  Most focus today is on class libraries like Gtk#.

> 9. Will mono be able to peacefully co-exist with CLR on windows (taking
> advantage of GAC, NGen, policy editors, publisher policies and other
> global-stuff)

It should be able to use assemblies from Windows. 

> 10. In general: do you think that Mono-1.0 will be production-ready? What
> kind of support will Ximian offer for it? Will you support both Linux and
> Windows?

Mono 1.0 will be production ready, for the subset that we define as
supported at that point.

I do not know what kind of support we will offer for 1.0, it is too
early to tell how that will look like.

But today we do already offer consulting services for people who want
to use Mono.

Miguel.