DotGNU, the GNU Project's Free Software alternative to Microsoft's .NET initiative, has made a CD release for version 0.1. The release now compiles on multiple platforms and supports web services and a PHP groupware suite, the group says.

Two and a half years in development, DotGNU can now be used to implement application programs and web services in C# that can run on the DotGNU Execution Environment (DGEE) webservice server, according to the project's announcement. DotGNU programs can also be integrated with phpGroupWare.

DotGNU aims to address the risk of monopolistic .NET platform vendor lock-in, enabling users to compile and run C# and C applications that use the base class libraries, XML, and System.Windows.Forms under multiple operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, MS Windows.

DotGNU currently consists of:

• DotGNU Portable.NET, an implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) – more commonly referred to as “.NET”. This component contains a very portable runtime engine, compilers for C# and C, a C# class library, and related development tools, according to DotGNU, with more languages (particularly Java and VB.NET) in progress.
• phpGroupWare, a multi-user web-based groupware suite, which also serves to provide a good collection of webservice components, according to DotGNU. XML-RPC access enables easy integration with custom webservice applications.
• The DGEE webservice server accepts, validates, and satisfies web service requests. It is implemented on top of a highly scalable distributed middleware called “Goldwater,” says DotGNU.

The 219MB release 0.1 CD is available from at-cost Free Software publisher CheapBytes, or can be downloaded using BitTorrent from the DotGNU Website.

Further information about the DotGNU project including how to participate is available from the DotGNU Website, or via the project's Freenode IRC channel, #dotgnu.

 
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