Microsoft Announces the Transfer of the Open Source .NET Project Mono to WineHQ for Future Development

Mono, initially developed by Xamarin, is a project at the core of providing an open-source Microsoft .NET. However, after Microsoft's acquisition of Xamarin in 2016, the project also came under Microsoft's umbrella.

Despite this, Microsoft has not actively developed the Mono project in the long term. Instead, from 2019, Microsoft only provided various small patches and bug fixes, without adding any significant functionalities, essentially leading the project into a state of stagnation.

After years of consideration, Microsoft has decided to let go; today, it announced the handover of the Mono project to the renowned Linux-Windows compatibility layer project, Wine, which will henceforth be managed by WineHQ.

The reason behind Microsoft's transfer of the project to Wine lies in its status as the most well-known Linux-Windows compatibility layer project. Wine has long utilized Mono, which means WineHQ is both capable and motivated to continue the development of Mono.

As of the announcement, the transfer process has been completed. Users and developers can now view the project and source code on WineHQ's GitLab, while Microsoft's GitHub repository for Mono and other source code will subsequently be archived, with binary files expected to be retained for four years.

For detailed information about this change, please visit the official Mono website: https://www.mono-project.com/