> It wasn't but that's besides the point. That actually is the point. Mono was an independent implementation. And C#/.net was much less encumbered than 'open s

> It wasn't but that's besides the point. That actually is the point. Mono was an independent implementation. And C#/.net was much less encumbered than 'open source and free, write once run anywhere' Java. Free as long as you aren't trying to embedded anything but one full stack implementation controlled by Sun. Otherwise you paid through the nose. Consider as well the beloved Sun sued Microsoft for implementing their own compatible version of Java. And later Oracle tried to sue the pants off Google for just using Java based API's. So the actual history disproves the conventional wisdom.