Our primary focus is to get the .NET Core 1.0 tooling to RTM quality for the Visual Studio 2017 RTM (please try the 2017 RC update we shipped with improvements in this area).
However, we are also starting to think of the next version of the runtime. Because of this, if you follow our repositories you will start to see .NET Core 2.0 versioning. While we are still in the process of planning the next release, there are some big themes you will identify in the early work on GitHub:
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Lower the Barrier of Entry and Reach .NET Standard 2.0 standardizes the shared APIs across .NET Framework, .NET Core and Xamarin making it easy to share code across all of .NET. .NET Core gain over 5,000 APIs from .NET Framework as part of this work making it a broader platform. Simplifying how a developer references .NET Core from many packages to one. Simplified acquisition of runtime and tools. And easier to reference Linux platforms and their dependencies. You can follow this work in the dotnet/standard and dotnet/corefx repos.
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.NET Core Tooling. Evolve the tooling aligned with the next .NET Core runtime release. This will include tooling for choosing which .NET Core version to target, to change the version of .NET Core for existing projects, full package IntelliSense in .csproj files and more. You can follow this work in the dotnet/roslyn-project-system, dotnet/sdk, and microsoft/msbuild repos.
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Performance. Continue to make the performance of building .NET Core applications faster, especially in the inner loop. This is the cycle of changing the source code and then restarting the application and making that as fast as possible. You can follow part of this work in the dotnet/sdk repo.
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.NET Core and Cloud. Continue to improve how you run .NET Core applications in Azure. Better logging, tracing and diagnosing errors in your applications when running in the cloud. You can follow this work in the dotnet/corefx, dotnet/corefxlab, and aspnet repos.
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Build from Source. Make it very easy to clone the .NET Core repository at GitHub and build the product. Great for experimenting with customizing the product or trying to get it to run on Linux distributions other than the ones we officially support. You can follow the bulk of the work in the dotnet/coreclr and dotnet/corefx repos.
As mentioned above these are just some of the early big themes we are going to invest in, we will also continue to invest in ASP.NET, Entity Framework, Languages and many other parts of .NET.
After we ship VS 2017 RTM you will hear more from us on the next version of .NET Core, and as always let us know what is important to you.
| Milestone | Release Date |
|---|---|
| .NET Core 2.0 Preview | Q2 2017 |
| .NET Standard 2.0 Preview | Q2 2017 |
| .NET Core 2.0 | Q3 2017 |
| .NET Standard 2.0 | Q3 2017 |
.NET Core is a general purpose, modular, cross-platform and open source implementation of .NET. It includes a runtime, framework libraries, compilers and tools that support a variety of chip and OS targets. These components can be used together or separately.
Major .NET Core components are listed below. Please note that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list.
- Runtime
- Libraries
- .NET Standard
- C#/VB compiler
- F# compiler
- SDK
- CLI tools
- NuGet
- ASP.NET
- MSBuild
- Docker Images
This roadmap is intended to communicate project priorities for evolving and extending the scope of .NET Core.
Architecture:
Version 1.0 OS Support:
| OS | Version | Architectures | Configurations | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Client | 7 SP1 - 10 | x64, x86 | ||
| Windows Server | 2008 R2 SP1 - 2016 | x64, x86 | Full, Server Core, Nano (2016 only) | |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7.2 | x64 | ||
| Debian | 8.2 | x64 | ||
| Ubuntu | 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS | x64 | ||
| Linux Mint | 17 | x64 | ||
| Centos | 7.1 | x64 | ||
| Oracle Linux | 7.1 | x64 | ||
| Mac OS X | 10.11, 10.12 | x64 | 10.12 added in 1.0.2 |
(* See the note regarding changes to supported Linux distros in the RC4 Release Notes.)
There will be packages available for the native package managers for each OS. (e.g. apt-get, rpm, pkg, msi) as well as zips.
Microsoft provides commercially reasonable support for ASP.NET Core 1.0, .NET Core 1.0 and Entity Framework Core 1.0 on the OS and Version detailed in the table above. Microsoft provides support for ASP.NET Core 1.0, .NET Core 1.0 and Entity Framework Core 1.0 on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. For an explanation of available support options, please visit Support for Business and Developers.
Broad goals:
- .NET Core code is high quality, has compelling performance, and is highly reliable.
- .NET Core can be ported to a broad set of OS platforms and chip architectures.
- .NET Core can be deployed with the application, side-by-side with other versions.
- .NET Core has a broad API surface that makes it suitable for most payloads.
- Developers can acquire a .NET Core developer environment quickly and intuitively.
- Developers can productively and intuitively build apps, using documentation, samples, community resources, and NuGet packages.
Contribution goals:
- Encourage an active community welcoming contributions from all.
The .NET Core maintainers have taken a liberal approach to contributions since the outset of the .NET Core open source project and have taken changes outside of the published priorities.
Microsoft ships multiple .NET Core distros. It is important that Microsoft can successfully ship .NET Core at quality and meet its desired dates.
.NET Core will ship as part of many Linux distros and we are actively working with key partners in the Linux community to make it natural for .NET Core to go everywhere people need it. We are constantly looking to expand our distro support and welcome contributions and collaborations in this direction.
- There are high-quality ports for Linux, macOS and Windows.
- There are high-quality ports for X64, X86, ARM32, and ARM64.
- .NET ships stable releases multiple times a year.
- Contributions should be prioritized that align with these goals.
The Microsoft distro currently supports the following workloads:
- Console Apps
- ASP.NET Core
- Windows 10 UWP