Microsoft .NET is now Open Source and Cross Platform (Linux and Macs)
Please read the title again. And Again. It is true.
As of today Microsoft .NET platform and runtime will be Open Sourced and take contributions from OSS developers. If you recollect MS has Open Sourced the Roslyn compiler a while ago. Now this is taking it to another level where the entire .NET framework is Open Sourced.
Now Open Sourcing can put the source into the hands of the general community and allow other developers to contribute back to the framework. There is another significant endeavor that Microsoft is doing along with this Open Sourcing – and that is, making .NET framework and runtime cross platform. Yes that is correct – the .NET runtime will be available on Linux and Macs. !WOW! – exhale and digest that for a second. This is really awesome. IF you are a Linux or MAC developer you have every reason to dig into this and benefit from enhanced professional skills, and as well as making money by developing cross platform apps.
For those developers who were on Linux and MAC and always eyeing the richness of the .NET stack and always kludging around with various libraries, those days are over. Now you can develop extremely RICH client and server based applications for Windows and Linux and MAC platform. Not only that as a developer with a single code base you can target these three application platforms all in one go. With Visual Studio and Xamarin you can develop Unified Applications that can seamlessly be deployed to these multiple mobile platforms such as Windows, iOS and Android. This opens up an immense opportunity for developers of varied experiences and backgrounds.
You can read more details from Soma’s blog here:
As a developer myself and also having some UNIX background, I am hoping my favorite IDE ( guess ) itself will be available in Linux.