.NET on FreeBSD

[Chip Morton]

At 10:48 PM 4/9/2003, Frans-Jan v. Steenbeek wrote:
>who would want to [use .NET on FreeBSD]? :P


That was my thought too, but after reading the article about the Shared 
Source CLI in the July 2002 issue of MSDN Magazine, I got a little interested.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/07/default.aspx

A couple of notable quotations:

When I first heard about the Shared Source CLI, I expected it to be the 
smallest and feeblest implementation Microsoft could get away with, so I 
was amazed when I finally got to see it. The Shared Source CLI isn't some 
one-off implementation built on the cheap. Rather, the Shared Source CLI 
code base is derived from the source code to the CLR and is practically 
identical in most important respects.

In addition to the execution engine itself, the Shared Source CLI includes 
source code to practically every .NET tool that comes with the CLR (and 
some that don't!) including complete C# and JScript® compilers and portable 
versions of all the familiar .NET tools....
I really think it could be very beneficial to FreeBSD (or any OS for that 
matter) to have a fully functional .NET CLR environment.  Not only would it 
open up a load of Windows software developed to FreeBSD users, but it could 
make FreeBSD a viable replacement for a Windows desktop or IIS server.  In 
other words, it could only broaden our market share.