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.NET Becomes Open Source and Cross-Platform

Rion Williams -

This morning, the announcements made at Microsoft’s Connect() event in New York have been rippling through the web and the effects of these announcements are likely going to be felt for years to come. This post will cover some of the highlights of the keynotes by Scott Guthrie and Soma Somasegar and will include the actual announcements themselves, if you are interested in watching them.

.NET Open Sourced

For decades, opponents of Microsoft have criticized the company for being too closed off and secretive and as of this morning, they may need to consider researching new arguments. The folks at Redmond absolutely stunned the world this morning with the announcement that the entire .NET ecosystem would be made open source and developed in the open. If you simply don’t believe it, you can visit the repository on GitHub below :

The open sourcing isn’t limited to just the framework either as the entire process of developing .NET is migrating to this same transparency :

  • Compilers, the JIT, Roslyn, Core Runtimes and everything in that area will all be open sourced.
  • Bug and Issue tracking will be in the open and publicly accessible via GitHub and usual channels like UserVoice.
  • Design materials like notes, specifications, recorded development team meetings and more are planned to be made public as well.

Won’t Someone Mess This Up?

You aren’t going to be able to set us up the bomb.

Any pull requests, regardless if they originate from Microsoft employees or you, will undergo the same review process and scrutiny. Test coverage, coding style, proper design and architecture will all be considered for every piece of code that is submitted. All bug tracking will be handled in the open as well through GitHub as well as the usual channels like User Voice, in the instance that you find something that you don’t necessarily know how to fix.

.NET Goes Cross Platform

Visual Studio and the .NET Framework have wildly successful since their introduction over a decade ago, however the technologies strong ties with Microsoft had always made it susceptible to criticism for being limited to the Windows platform. With the migration to becoming open source, it would only make sense that this perception be severed and with the second half of this morning’s announcements, Microsoft has done just that.

Both Visual Studio and the entire .NET Stack will be made to natively run and target both Linux and Mac operating systems in addition to Windows. This expansion will allow developers to work within their favorite environments and build applications that can target any technology or platforms. With this, Microsoft also announced the release of a new version of Visual Studio called Visual Studio Community.

Visual Studio Community Edition

This new edition of Visual Studio Community will be completely free, fully-functional version of Visual Studio (as long as you aren’t developing enterprise applications). It will be able to target any device, platform, server or technology. This is part of the cross-platform targeting system included in upcoming versions of Visual Studio (e.g. if you wanted to target an iOS App for the App Store, an Android application or Windows Phone app, all of this can be done through Visual Studio). If you are interesting in checking it out for yourself, you can download it directly from the link below :

It certainly is a great time to be a .NET Developer and it looks like it’s a great time to consider becoming one as well.

Want a Recap?

If you are a more visual person and you felt your eyes getting a bit heavy from all that text, perhaps you would prefer actually watching Scott Guthrie’s keynote from this morning and seeing the announcements yourself :

Additionally, if you are still interested, you can watch all of the sessions from the Connect() event on Channel9 here.