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NAnt2 is an updated and enhanced fork of NAnt - a .NET-based build tool and NAnt.Contrib - NAnt extension.

It is intended as a drop-in replacement of NAnt, and it is licensed as free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License.

Because people still use it and because it still works great, even if the last release was long time ago (on 9th June 2012).

NAnt2 is provided under included GPL license. Portions of it (NAnt2.Contrib) are provided under included LGPL license.
There is an effort to change license to Apache 2.0 / MIT. If you ever contributed to NAnt, NAnt.Contrib or NAnt2, please state your approval/disapproval on ticket #14

In theory it is kind of like make without make's wrinkles. In practice it's a lot like Ant. If you are not familiar with Jakarta Ant you can get more information at the Ant project web site.

Because Ant was too Java-specific.

Because Ant needed the Java runtime. NAnt only needs the .NET or Mono runtime.

• NAnt - Details of the latest version can be found on the NAnt sourceforge web site
• Nant.Contrib - Details of the latest version can be found on the NAnt sourceforge web site

• Windows (net-2.0):
• Windows (mono-2.0):
• Linux: Overview

The compilation process uses NAnt to build NAnt.

The approach is to first compile a copy of NAnt (using make/nmake) for bootstrapping purpose. Next, the bootstrapped version of NAnt is used in conjunction with NAnt build file (NAnt.build) to build the full version.

To build NAnt, you will need the following components:

• A version of the Microsoft .NET Framework.

  Available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/

  You will need the .NET Framework SDK as well as the runtime components if you intend to compile programs.

  Note: NAnt currently supports versions 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.5, and 4.0 of the Microsoft .NET Framework.

or

• Mono for Windows (version 2.0 or higher)

  Available from http://www.mono-project.com/downloads/

• GNU toolchain - including GNU make

• pkg-config

  Available from: http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/pkgconfig

• A working Mono installation and development libraries (version 2.0 or higher)

  Available from: http://www.mono-project.com/downloads/

Build NAnt using Microsoft .NET:

• GNU Make

    make install MONO= MCS=csc prefix=<installation path> [DESTDIR=<staging path>] [TARGET=<nant target>]
  

  eg. make install MONO= MCS=csc prefix="c:\Program Files" TARGET=net-4.5

• NMake

    nmake -f Makefile.nmake install prefix=<installation path> [DESTDIR=<staging path>] [TARGET=<nant target>]
  

  eg. nmake -f Makefile.nmake install prefix="c:\Program Files" TARGET=net-4.5

Building NAnt using Mono:

• GNU Make

    make install prefix=<installation path> [DESTDIR=<staging path>] [TARGET=<nant target>]
  

  eg. make install prefix="c:\Program Files" TARGET=mono-4.5 MCS="mcs -sdk:4.5"

• NMake

    nmake -f Makefile.nmake install MONO=mono CSC=mcs prefix=<installation path> [DESTDIR=<staging path>] [TARGET=<nant target>]
  

  eg. nmake -f Makefile.nmake install MONO=mono CSC=mcs prefix=/usr/local/

Note: These instructions only apply to the source distribution of NAnt, as the binary distribution contains pre-built assemblies.

Documentation is available in HTML format, in the doc/ directory.

NAnt is provided under included GPL license.
NAntContrib is provided under included LGPL license.
NAnt Copyright (C) 2001-2012 Gerry Shaw
NAntContrib Copyright (C) 2002 Tomas Restrepo (tomasr@mvps.org)

• Simona Avornicesei

Lead Developers

• Gerry Shaw (gerry_shaw -at- yahoo.com)
• Ian MacLean (ian_maclean -at- another.com)
• Scott Hernandez (scotthernandez -at- hotmail.com)
• Gert Driesen (gert.driesen -at- ardatis.com)
• Ryan Boggs
• Dominik Guder

Developers

• Eric V. Smith
• Bernard Vander Beken (bvb -at- iname.com)
• Jason Diamond (jason -at- injektilo.org)
• Jay Turpin (jayturpin -at- hotmail.com)
• Matthew Mastracci (matt -at- aclaro.com)
• John Barstow (John_Barstow -at- gfsg.co.nz )
• Clayton Harbour (claytonharbour -at- sporadicism.com)

Contributors

• Aaron A. Anderson (aaron -at- skypoint.com)
• Arjen Poutsma (Arjen -at- ZyLAB.COM)
• Ari Hännikäinen
• Ben Lowery (b3low -at- hotmail.com)
• Bill Baker (bill.baker -at- epigraph.com)
• Brad Wilson (dotnetguy -at- pobox.com)
• Jason Reimer (jason.reimer -at- diversant.net)
• Jeroen Witmond (jnw -at- paralax.nl)
• Joe Jones (joejo -at- microsoft.com)
• Justin Rudd
• Mike Krueger (mike -at- icsharpcode.net)
• Philippe Lavoie
• Sergey Chaban (serge -at- wildwestsoftware.com)
• Shawn Van Ness
• Giuseppe Greco (giuseppe.greco -at- agamura.com)
• John Lam (http://www.iunknown.com/)

...And more, please see list archives for additional contributors

Lead Developers

• Gerry Shaw (gerry_shaw -at- yahoo.com)
• Ian MacLean (ian_maclean -at- another.com)
• Scott Hernandez (scotthernandez -at- hotmail.com)
• Gert Driesen (gert.driesen -at- ardatis.com)

Contributors

• Dominik Guder
• Clayton Harbour
• Richard Birkby
• Nikhil Gupta
• Bryce