The next release of the popular Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution may include a third Mono-dependent application by default, a spokesman for Canonical, the parent company for Ubuntu, told iTWire today.

Responding to an inquiry about the Canonical policy on Mono, Gerry Carr said: "That's an interesting question. Really, it is Ubuntu's board of governance, not Canonical whose policy you want as they decide what goes in the distro. The board have been asked the same thing recently and are considering it but I do not have a timeline for a decision but I will track and push as far as I can."

Mono is a software project begun some years ago by current Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza to create an open source clone of Microsoft's .NET development environment.

Until version 9.04, which was released in April, Ubuntu had two Mono-dependent applications - F-Spot and Tomboy. The former is a picture viewer and the latter a note-taking application.

A Mono-free port of Tomboy called Gnote was recently created by former Novell developer Hubert using C++/Gtkmm.

Asked whether there were any plans to include more Mono-dependent applications in future releases, Carr said: "We are not deliberately looking for Mono-based applications but nor are we excluding them because they have that dependency. I think we will add one more (Banshee) in 9.10."

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