GNOME, the popular desktop environment for Linux, has started offering C# bindings for the GTK+ and GNOME libraries. This has resulted in Mono, an open source version of the CLR, becoming a GNOME dependency. According to the release notes, new projects using C#, as well as existing ones wanting to migrate to C#, will need to go through the same proposal process the other modules use.
C# is not the only language now available for all GNOME users. Mono version 1.1.17 can also run IronPython 1.0 RC 2. No word yet on whether they intend to ship Mono with the release version of IronPython or require developers to get it from Microsoft.
A Visual Basic 2005 runtime for Mono is also available as a separate download. The matching compiler is not yet ready.