OT: Common Language Runtime for BSD/Unix/Linux/OS X/etc

["David Crawshaw" <david@fierceflow.com>]

Sorry for posting this here, but I have no idea where else to go.

I have been learning about Microsoft's so called Java Killer, C#. C# is a
language that gets compiled into what is known as IL code, and the IL code
is run in the Common Language Runtime (CLR). There has been a lot of talk of
the fact that Microsoft released C# (a really really nice language, I love
it) and the CLR royalty free. Anyone is allowed to produce a version.

My question is, has anyone started a project to build a CLR for
Unix/BSD/Linux? I'd love to see this, as for once, there would be one truly
utopian programming language where we could write the simpler programs, and
they work everywhere. You wouldn't even have to recompile to move a program
between OS X, Windows, and OpenBSD.

As I see it, the development API Microsoft created would have to be rebuilt
to the letter, and would probably be split into a few sub groups:

The base IL engine. - The real meat of the system. Would have to be built as
platform independent as possible, and might require some kind of Kernel
Module for the memory management system. Very unsure about this.

WinForms Interface - WinForms seems to be a way of using .NET to build
traditional Win32 applications. I'm assuming the X programming API could be
used, making this section sort of an interpritation layer between the CLR
way and the X way. If this was going to work on the Aqua interface of OS X,
it would need a seperate system for the Apple API.

WebForms Engine/ASP.NET/ADO+ and the rest - This is used to generate Web
Applications. I'd guess this to be the hardest part, as it would probably
need an ASP.NET engine written for Apache, and all sorts of other
components/additions.

I've never been much of a low level programmer (ie. like a lot of you guys
are, with your OS programming), I'm just someone who's interested in seeing
this CLR on a platform other than Windows, and offering my server bandwidth
and management if no ones already doing it.


David