X
Tech

Microsoft open sources Xamarin's software development kit

Microsoft has made good on its promise to open source the Xamarin cross-platform software development kit, and contributed it to the .NET Foundation.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Two months after being acquired by Microsoft, cross-platform development-tool vendor Xamarin is continuing to push the open-source envelope.

xamarinopensource.jpg

On April 27 at Xamarin's Evolve developer conference in Orlando, officials announced Microsoft has open-sourced the Xamarin software development kit (SDK).

At Microsoft's Build 2016 developers conference last month, Microsoft announced intentions to open source the Xamarin SDK, runtime, libraries and command line tools. Microsoft also announced it would make Xamarin part of the various Visual Studio releases at no additional cost.

Today, company officials said Microsoft has open sourced and contributed to the .NET Foundation the Xamarin SDK for Android, iOS and Mac under the same MIT license used for the Mono project. The native application program interface (API) bindings for iOS, Android and Mac, the command-line tools necessary to build for these platforms, and the cross-platform UI framework Xamarin.Forms are all part of what's now open sourced.

Microsoft also is working to help Xamarin developers more easily connect Visual Studio to Mac so they can create iOS apps natively in C#. Xamarin's iOS Simulator remoting allows developers to simulate and interact with their iOS apps in Visual Studio, with support for touch screens. And its iOS USB remoting allows devs to deploy and debug apps from Visual Studio to an iPad or iPhone plugged into their Windows PCs.

Microsoft also unveiled some new Xamarin.Forms features; enhancements to the Xamarin Studio IDE to bring it closer to Visual Studio; and a Test Recorder Visual Studio plug-in at Evolve.

Editorial standards