Microsoft announced that it is open sourcing the full server-side .NET stack, and expanding .NET to run on Linux and Mac OS. The company also released Visual Studio Community 2013, which is a free edition of Visual Studio that provides access to the core toolset.

“With billions of devices in the market today, developers need tools that target many different form factors and platforms,” said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division. “Through Visual Studio and .NET we are committed to delivering a comprehensive end-to-end solution for developers to build and manage applications across multiple devices and platforms.”

Included in the .NET server stack open sourcing are: ASP.NET, the .NET compiler, the .NET Core Runtime, Framework and Libraries.

The company says it will work closely with the open source community, taking contributions for future improvements to .NET, and will work through the .NET Foundation.

Non-enterprise application developers who wish to get started with VIsual Studio Community can do so here. Microsoft is also previewing Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 2015.

Finally, the company announced the preview of ASP.NET 5.0, which it describes as a “streamlined framework and runtime optimized for cloud and server workloads.”

Image via .NET Foundation