[Mono-list] Just a simple question

[Andreas Färber]

Hi,

FYI,
> Norbert Berzen schrieb:
>   
>> What if microsoft decides not to support the native
>> executable (PE) format any longer? What if they say: "The one and only
>> executable file format we support is the CLR/CLI (PE) format".
>>
>> What happens to mono in that case? Maybe the answer is obvious, but not
>> to me. Could one of you tell me? Would it be the end of mono at windows
>> platforms?
>>   
>>     
> Should Microsoft ever decide to discontinue unmanaged applications and
> only support managed applications then hopefully any application
> compiled on the Mono platform will run on that future OS. However at
> least today I've heard managed (CLR) code can't be used anywhere near
> the NT kernel (drivers, core services) so they cannot just dump the
> whole PE format (or they would have to invent a new unmanaged format).
>   

I just read this about Singularity, an experimental managed OS from
Microsoft Research:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/06/EndBracket/default.aspx

More here: http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/

While Singularity is certainly not Windows, it sure is an experimental
step into the direction of an almost fully managed and thus, by nature
of its architecture, incompatible operating system ... so the question
was justified after all. :-)

Andreas