What are the Types of Assemblies?
One of the drawback of using Visual Studio.NET and the .NET framework to develop applications has been the lack of cross-platform support. As the introduction of the .NET framework and common language run time a few years ago, there have been a some projects designed to bring the .NET framework to other platforms, containing Linux and UNIX. The DotGNU project is touted as the "Free software alternative to .NET" and encompasses a number of projects, containing DotGNU Portable .NET, which is designed to be used to compile and run C# and C applications on a multitude of platforms, containing GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Windows. One of the major features of the product is it's compatibility with EMCA standards for C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), as well as Microsoft's own CLI execution in the .NET framework.