Microsoft has expanded access to the full version of its popular Visual Studio development tools with today's release of Visual Studio Community 2013, which can be used by individuals and small development teams for free with few restrictions.
The tools can be used by any single developer and for teams of up to five people to make both commercial and non-commercial apps for Windows, iOS and Android. It can also use all of the over 5,000 Visual Studio extensions. Enterprise-themed apps cannot be made with these tools but everything else is apparently allowed. Microsoft's Developer Division corporate VP S. "Soma" Somasegar stated:
Opening up access to Visual Studio extensibility to a wider audience also creates great new opportunities for extension authors to build new tools and experiences on top of the Visual Studio platform. For both open source and commercial extension authors, Visual Studio offers a great developer tools platform.
Microsoft made a number of other developer-themed announcements today, including the launch of a public preview for the next major Visual Studio release. The final version should be made available sometime in 2015.
Source: Microsoft, Visual Studio Community 2013
