I don&#x27;t recall the details but I understand M$ opened .NET because they&#x27;re going to have a cloud-based &quot;.NET IL in, optimized C(&#x2F;C++?) out&quot; service for Windows (desktop, tablet, phone, XBOne), while everyone else is stuck with running the .NET runtime bytecode interpreter. It&#x27;s a remarkably well-thought-through plan; .NET has proven itself as a reasonably snappy platform, so Linux&#x2F;FreeBSD&#x2F;OS X won&#x27;t feel <i>too</i> left out.<p>So yeah, pretty much exactly what you described.