Java (not necessarily Sun's version) will be available on any platform that people care to put it on. MS have made a point of saying (or at the very least not denying) that .net is intended to work best with Windows and, indeed, parts of it are likely to work ONLY with Windows.
MS have applied to patent the .NET api(application no 0030028685).
If the patent is granted and microsoft applies rand terms(reasonable and non discriminatory) as opposed to rf terms(royalty free) then every copy of mono or dotgnu or any other .net implementation will require licensing payment to microsoft. ie no open source implementations of .net will be possible.
Apparently for the ecma microsoft promised rf for the core, but for other parts asp.net(web pages), ado.net(database access) and System.Windows(the gui) are fair game.
Also System.Windows exposes the Win32 api so that you need a copy of windows or a windows emulator to support it.
This means it is likely a "C++" solution will develop for C# where programmers on windows use System.Windows and linux developers use a GTK+ wrapper.
Compare C++ developers which use MFC on windows and GTK+ or Qt on linux.
- Robert
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