C Sharp (programming Language) - Implementations

Implementations

The reference C# compiler is Microsoft Visual C#, which is closed-source.

Other C# compilers exist, often including an implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure and the .NET class libraries up to .NET 2.0:

• The Mono project provides an open source C# compiler, a complete open source implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure including the required framework libraries as they appear in the ECMA specification, and a nearly complete implementation of the Microsoft proprietary .NET class libraries up to .NET 3.5. As of Mono 2.6, no plans exist to implement WPF; WF is planned for a later release; and there are only partial implementations of LINQ to SQL and WCF.
• The DotGNU project also provides an open source C# compiler, a nearly complete implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure including the required framework libraries as they appear in the ECMA specification, and subset of some of the remaining Microsoft proprietary .NET class libraries up to .NET 2.0 (those not documented or included in the ECMA specification, but included in Microsoft's standard .NET Framework distribution).
• Microsoft's Rotor project (currently called Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure) (licensed for educational and research use only) provides a shared source implementation of the CLR runtime and a C# compiler, and a subset of the required Common Language Infrastructure framework libraries in the ECMA specification (up to C# 2.0, and supported on Windows XP only).