Microsoft Is Making Xamarin Free, Will Open-Source Its SDK

This week is Microsoft's BUILD Conference and a day after announcing Ubuntu for Windows 10, Microsoft today announced it will be providing Xamarin free to all Visual Studio users and that they intend to open-source its technology too.

Last month Microsoft bought out Xamarin, the company stewarding the controversial Mono project who has been focusing on bringing .NET to Android and iOS.

Today the news is that all users of Microsoft Visual Studio will have free access to Xamarin's offering and that Xamarin Studio for OS X will be made available free. Visual Studio Enterprise customers also get access to Xamarin's enterprise offerings at no added price.

Microsoft will also be open-sourcing the Xamarin SDK with runtime and other utilities later this year via the .NET Foundation. Those unfamiliar with Xamarin's offerings can visit Xamarin.com.

Update: The Mono Project is also now going under the MIT license for everyone. In the announcement, Miguel de Icaza also outlines a number of the proprietary Mono extensions that will also be opened up. Related is also Microsoft's patent promise for Mono.