When does .NET work on UNIX?

Question

I heard about mono for developing cross-platform .Net applications, but why .Net Framework itself includes conditional compilation, for example

#if PLATFORM_UNIX ... #endif // PLATFORM_UNIX 

as seen in the source .Net Framework for System.IO.Path

Answer 1

This is for SSCLI , which uses most of the same code base and can work on UNIX

Answer 2

I'm going to take on a wild guess and go with what you see, these are relics from Rotor, an implementation of FreeBSD.NET from the way back that day.

IIRC Rotor was somehow involved in the Hotmail conversion process when MS bought this company.

Answer 3

From the SSCLI source code, we can understand that the CLR very easily supports other platforms if MS wants to.