.NET for Linux?

According to an article over at ZDNet, and recent SEC filings from Corel, the Redmond Giant has apparently left an opening for the possibility to port Microsoft's .NET framework and services to Linux. This comes shortly after Microsoft and Corel announced a partnership in which MS would buy 24.6 percent of Corel in stock, and Microsoft had threatened to sue its rival Corel over several technologies found in the Corel WordPerfect Suite they felt were copyright violations.

Microsoft originally stated that its investment in Corel was simply to gain the backing of a major company for its .Net movement everyone has been talking about recently. Corel was simply to make its existing applications compatible with .NET and support that movement and its products.

It seems that last week Derek Burney, Corel's CEO hinted that his company was going to attempt to find a way to port the much acclaimed .NET services to Linux, as Corel has become a major Linux pusher over the last year or so. So supportive in fact, that most of their existing applications have been ported to the alternative OS, and the company's own version of Linux has been created.

ZDNet quotes the SEC document as saying "Corel hereby grants Microsoft an option for Corel to Port some portion or all of the .NET Framework from the Windows Platform to the Linux Platform (the 'Port Project')."

According to the agreement, Microsoft would own all ported materials, will not have to pay Corel for the deliverables, and has the right to license the ported deliverables to interested third parties, including Corel itself.

Microsoft has 3 years to decide the fate of .NET for Linux, and if it does go forward with the project, Corel promises 20 full-time developers and at least 10 full-time testers for the project.

You can check out the article over at ZDNet if you are interested, and stay tuned as this could be a major development in the computing industry. Many questioned if Microsoft would be using Corel to develope Linux-based products, and this could be an answer. What do you all think?