Is WPF on Linux (already) possible?

Question

I love programming with .NET, especially C# 3.0, .NET 3.5 and WPF. But what I especially like is that with Mono .NET is really platform-independent.

Now I heard abou

Answer 1

Update: Since people keep upvoting this, I want to point out it is long since out of date. Mono got acquired by MS years ago, and their posture regarding open-source has changed, so consider this post obsolete. (As obsolete as the WPF framework itself, heh).

Mono is in a bit of an uncomfortable position when it comes to Microsoft APIs such as Winforms and WPF. A subset of the .Net technology is an ECMA standard, but free implementations of these APIs are probably on shakier legal ground. I believe this was a large factor in the covenant between Novell and Microsoft, which is good for Novell customers. But people who use Mono that aren't customers of Novell aren't protected. For this reason a lot of people in the F/OSS community look askance at Mono despite its technical merits.

For this reason, Gtk# will always be preferred, since it is truly Free. Many people consider it to be superior to Winforms anyway. As far as WPF is concerned, it will almost certainly be a low priority for Novell. They may implement it eventually, but I would expect Moonlight to be the closest you could get for the forseeable future.

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Since posting this, Microsoft has extended their covenant to anybody who implements the ECMA 334 & 335 standards.

Answer 2

From the mono website

At this point, the Mono project does not have plans to implement Windows Presentation Foundation APIs as part of the project.

Moonlight is an implementation of silverlight, which is a browser based flash like technology based on a subset of WPF.

In my opinion the choice to not implement WPF is monos biggest mistake. As WPF is fast becoming the default choice for new .net user interfaces. See this blog for more.

Answer 3

There is a library called Silverform SDK that aims to provide cross-platform WPF and Silverlight implementation.

The library is implemented in managed code and currently works with OpenTK and Unity3D as render backends. Major functionality, such as binding, layout, main controls and primitives, has already been implemented (check Unity web player demos here). Initially it has been focused on Unity3d render, while support for standalone Mono applications will be added as a separate build in the future.

Disclaimer: I am one of the developers of the library.