Although Microsoft's .NET open source framework only just celebrated its 20th birthday the company is now pushing ahead with a new version, .NET 7.
In a blog post, Microsoft says it is releasing .NET 7 Preview 1 alongside ASP.NET Core Preview 1 and EF7 Preview 1.
".NET 7 builds on the foundation established by .NET 6, which includes a unified set of base libraries, runtime, and SDK, a simplified development experience, and higher developer productivity," says Microsoft's Jeremy Likness. "Major areas of focus for .NET 7 include improved support for cloud native scenarios, tools to make it easier to upgrade legacy projects, and simplifying the developer experience by making it easier to work with containers."
Open source forever and always
If you use .NET for work (or pleasure), then it's worth reading the full blog for the details on what's new over .NET 6 as there's a lot.
Some headline features is the addition of .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI), and new tools to make it easier to build cloud-native apps by simplifying the setup and configuration necessary to implement secure authentication and authorization, and also improving the performance of application startup and runtime execution.
Developers will be able to easily and quickly upgrade their .NET 6 apps to the new platform, with Microsoft providing a range of support tools and services.
After many years opposing open source, Microsoft is really leaning into making the space better. It's fair to say many developers were initially sceptical of Microsoft and it's commitment to making open source tools as the company, seeking to maintain its dominant position, opposed many developers and projects.
But Microsoft's GitHub acquisition for $7.5 billion in 2018 helped the company turn a new page and win over sceptics.
By maintaining .NET 7 – which is truly open source and cross-platform – so thoroughly (you could even say lovingly), Microsoft is doing its bit for the furtherance of computing.
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