.NET/Mono Install Base

Question

Me and some friends are considering writing a new FOSS project, and the debate is divided between using .NET or something else.

So I am wondering if there is an advertis

Answer 1

Let me try to give you an educated guess of the Mono penetration on Linux. For KDE there are hardly any applications dependent on Mono. For GNOME that might be different. Several popular applications (TomBoy, F-Spot, my own GIMP# stuff ;) ) need Mono.

Now lets suppose that 50 % of all desktop environments are KDE, the other half is GNOME. And lets suppose again that half of the GNOME users install a program that depends on Mono. In that case you get about 25 % of your Linux user base that has Mono installed. Personally I think that is already a pretty high number, but if gives you an upper limit. My own guestimate would be around 10 %, but that is just gut feeling. Hope this helps.