[Mono-list] Mono support on Fedora, Ubuntu, Solaris, etc.

[Andrew Jorgensen]

The Mono Team is looking for volunteers to maintain packages for several platforms.  We receive many bug reports and request for help which ultimately turn out to be incompatibilities between the packages we build and platforms we do not test them on.  The Generic Linux installer has been especially problematic in this regard.

Historically it was important for us to provide packages for distributions that did not carry Mono.  With all major distributions already including some version of Mono it's time to focus on ensuring that they include the best version and that it's packaged in the best way.

For these reasons we have decided that the Mono team will only release binaries for platforms we test.  This includes the latest openSUSE (11.0), the latest SuSE Linux Enterprise (SLE 10), Windows, and MacOSX.  The Generic Linux installer has already been dropped.  This new policy will take effect immediately and will impact the 2.0 release.

This does not mean that we don't want Mono to run well on other distributions. On the contrary we want to give our users and developers the best experience possible.  The best way to do this is to have better cooperation with members of the major distribution projects.

Ideally we'd like to have each distribution provide packages for their own releases.  For instance we would love to have an Ubuntu PPA with the latest mono.  I don't know if Fedora has something similar but we can use the openSUSE Build Service to build packages for RedHat derivatives if they don't.  Our hope is that this will lead to better mono support on all the major distributions.

We are also looking for a volunteer who is passionate about Mono on Solaris to maintain packages on Blastwave.

If you are a packager for one of these projects and / or have the skills to help in this way please contact me.  If possible we would like to have packages for all these platforms available when 2.0 is released in late September (more likely early October).

Andrew Jorgensen
Mono / Moonlight Package Maintainer