Microsoft Open Sources the Entire .NET framework, Sets Plans for Linux Distributions

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

At Microsoft’s Connect() developer event in New York City, Microsoft announced it has open sourced the entire .NET framework, which is central to building Windows apps, and it is planning on releasing an official distribution of the .NET Core for Apple and Linux systems.

According to a blog post from Scott Guthrie, EVP of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise group, the .NET Core Runtime is now available on Github under the MIT open source license. This provides everything needed to execute .NET code including the CLR, Just-In-Time Compiler, Garbage Collector, and core .NET base class libraries.

An official distribution of the .NET Core for Apple and Linux systems will enable .NET server and cloud applications to be built and run on Windows Server and Linux systems.

While the Microsoft .NET framework now fits the Open Source Initiative’s definition of open source, the Mono project was an existing cross-platform, open-source implementation of .NET. Guthrie stated that Microsoft would be working closely with the Mono community in the completion of the Linux port.

“The Mono community have done a great job advancing .NET and Linux over the last decade,” Guthrie wrote. “Releasing the .NET Core source under an open source license is going to enable us to collaborate together much more closely going forward. There are many Linux enhancements Mono has built that we would like to use, and likewise there are improvements Mono will be able to benefit from by being able to use the .NET source code.”

These latest efforts, under the guidance of new CEO Satya Nadella and his “mobile-first, cloud-first” strategy, around open-source and different operating system compatibility illustrate the steps Microsoft is willing to take to ensure its systems will still be used by developers in an ecosystem of many platforms and tools.

The company has said that around 20 percent of VMs running on its Azure public cloud platform are running Linux. Last month, it added CoreOS, a container-based Linux operating system, to the list of Linux distributions it already supports. It also participated in Google’s Kubernetes project, a management solution for containers including Docker containers, and committed to offering Kubernetes support on Azure.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/microsoft-open-sources-entire-net-framework-sets-plans-linux-distributions