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Including .NET, correct. I believe the GP is incorrect here. The real reason for .NET has always been to kill Java/JVM and give MS more control over how their OS is used. Anything that becomes a "must-have" on Windows for the typical user is something that MS must control themselves, thus we've had IE to replace Netscape, CLR/C# to replace Java, Silverlight to replace Flash, etc.



You're right, this is definitely arguable.



And therein lies the danger of using Mono. Winforms, ASP.NET, etc, aren't covered in the ECMA standard, only the foundation of the stack, CLR, CIL, C#, etc., is covered.



In the long run this is an ecosystem that will always be controlled by MS, and will always be playing catch-up with what MS is doing with CLR/C# on Windows. No one seriously believes that Icaza/Novell by themselves can keep Mono in-line with MS's Windows versions of CLR/C#. And worst of all, at any time, MS could shut them down if they wanted to, because of their implementations of Winforms and ASP.NET. Not that that is likely now or in the near future, since having Mono in existence is politically useful to MS, but in the long run, Mono's fate is controlled not by Icaza, or Novell, or Mono's users, but by MS. Hence the problem some have with using Mono.



Most of the time, unfortunately, politics is the essential part...



True, on technical grounds C# is an improvement over Java (like unsigned integers) and CLR has some features that the JVM should have had at the start (like dynamic language support), of course MS had the advantage of coming with CLR/C# long after Java, so they could fix the mistakes originally made by Sun.

In the real world however, technical sophistication doesn't guarantee success. If it did, we'd all have been using Betamax cassettes instead of VHS all these years. Why not Betamax you ask? Because back then Sony acted a lot like MS does now, but since the industry wasn't controlled by any Sony "monopoly", it was free to go in a different direction, one which was less technically sophisticated, but at least one not controlled by a single gatekeeper...

If you're only concerned with the Windows world then using MS's stuff is an obvious no-brainer. For those not in the Windows ecosystem however, using MS-controlled technology makes little sense, and is inherently dangerous, because you aren't in their ecosystem - which is the only one they care about.

Those who've been around long enough to witness MS's anti-competitive and monopolistic practices for the last 2 decades or so, aren't going to touch Mono. For most folks out there on a non-MS OS, its simply a non-starter.

Not to mention stuff like Mono.cecil and their REPL. My day job is doing ASP.net, and I've got mono installed as well as .net for the REPL. There is just no substitute if you want to do some quick exploratory coding to try out an idea.