using-mono-to-your-advantage
When
Microsoft unleashed .NET onto the world they were nice enough to hand
the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), along with the C# language, to
the people at the European Computer Manufactures Association, better
known to most as the ECMA. This allowed for an ECMA standards for the
CLI and C# to be developed and, eventually, these ECMA standards also
became ISO standards. At this stage you might be thinking “So, what has
this got to do with what Mono is?” Relax, slow down, I’m getting to it.
This standardization meant that details about how a CLI implementation
should work, and also details about the C# programming language, where
publicly available and anybody with the time and desire could implement
their own CLI, essentially making their own version of .NET. Mono was
born.
-m