2009 was a breakout year for the Mono Project, an open source initiative sponsored by Novell. And the editors at SD Times appear to agree, yesterday naming the Mono Project as an “innovator” on its SD Times 100 list, which recognizes software industry organizations and individuals that have demonstrated innovation and leadership in the previous year.
Thanks to Mono, .NET developers have been able to create cross-platform applications for the hottest devices and technologies, including the iPhone, iPad, Silverlight and Visual Studio. Mono also enabled the Linux community to stream live the biggest events of the past calendar year, including President Obama's inauguration and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. 2009 milestones included:
- In February 2009, the Mono Project reached a milestone with Moonlight 1.0, the first and only open source project that provides Linux users access to Microsoft Silverlight content. Before the launch, more than 20,000 Linux users downloaded a pre-release of Moonlight to watch the Silverlight broadcast of President Obama's historic inauguration.
- In September 2009, the Mono Project developed MonoTouch 1.0, the first solution for creating applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch using the .NET framework.
- In November 2009, Mono Tools for Visual Studio was launched to enable .NET developers to utilize their familiar Visual Studio environment to design, code and maintain multi-platform applications.
- In December 2009, Moonlight 2 was announced for users looking to utilize Microsoft's Silverlight 2 player.
To learn more about how Mono's active and enthusiastic contributing community has helped it become the top choice for development of cross-platform applications, click here.
