Microsoft has announced the release of Open .NET 8, which is a result of merging the .NET Core and Mono frameworks. This new version, built on .NET 7, allows developers to create diverse applications for various platforms such as the browser, cloud systems, desktop, IOT devices, and mobile using unified libraries and a general assembly process. The release includes .NET SDK 8, .NET Runtime 8, and ASP.NET Core Runtime 8 for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Additionally, a specific .NET Desktop Runtime 8 is available exclusively for Windows users. Notably, the accomplishments related to the project are distributed under the MIT license. The .NET 8 branch is classified as LTS (Long-Term Support) and will be supported for three years until November 2026.
The .NET 8 framework is composed of various components including the JIT compiler Ryujit, API, WPF libraries, Windows Forms, WinUI, Entity Framework, command line tool ‘Dotnet’, and development tools for microservices, libraries, servers, graphics, and console applications. The release also offers a stack for developing ASP.NET Core 8.0 web applications, ORM-layer Entity Framework 8.0, WPF 8 (Windows Presentation Foundation), Windows Forms 8 for GUI development, Orleans 8 for Cloud Native applications, MAUI 8 for developing user interfaces, and language support for C# 12 and F# 8. Support for .NET 8.0 and C# 12 is provided in the free code editor Visual Studio Code.
To learn more about the features of Open .NET 8, you can visit the official website.