
Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition now available - numo16
http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs
======
andyhnj
Speaking as a guy who (currently) only uses Visual Studio at home for
recreational programming, and not at the office, I'm pretty happy about this.
The Express editions are OK, but it's nice to have access to extensions, like
VisualHG for Mercurial integration. (Yeah, I know I should switch to Git, but
I really like Hg.)

~~~
jdpage
Honestly, Mercurial is just _better_ than Git -- the only reason I switched
away from it is because Github. Constantly contemplating switching back.

~~~
Mikeb85
Bitbucket is better than Github anyway. And you can use Mercurial there...

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pbowyer
"Visual Studio Community 2013 is free for any non-enterprise application
development."

What's left out to make it non-enterprise development? Or to put it another
way - how are they restricting its usage & preserving sales of Visual Studio?

~~~
FreezerburnV
I believe what they mean by "non-enterprise application development" is the
slightly later on clarification saying "for teams of up to 5 people" (or less
than 5 people, I forget exactly). So likely you will get a free license, which
you can use to register up to the max number for community, and if you try
anything beyond that it will ask you to buy a license. Or something along that
line.

They also mention that Community has the full power of Visual Studio with no
features really removed. It's just the licensing for whatever size teams that
matters.

~~~
e12e
It's kind of funny; it's not like the price of the actual license is a big
obstacle for anyone making money with the tool -- but _managing_ the licenses
and staying _compliant_ \-- now _that 's_ a cost I don't want. Just like
windows licenses. Is it per user? Per core? Per CPU? Can I have any number of
(vm) instances per cpu? Per server, or was it per cpu socket? Can I upgrade?
Can I upgrade the hardware and keep the license? It's madness - I don't have
time to waste on crap like that.

------
anoncow
What happens when a desktop equivalent of android becomes the mainstay?

Microsoft makes 25% of it's revenue from Windows. And an equal amount from
server and tools(this is where VS belongs). Xbox makes 13% and Bing 4%.

Office makes up 32% of the revenue. If MS can sacrifice a part of the 25%
which VS is a part of and retain or perhaps increase the net revenue from
other segments ( by attracting developers), then it will be a successful move.

Attracting developers will only be half the game. It will still have to find a
way to ship more devices with Windows and for that it will have to make
Windows devices and phones primarily an attractive option.

With most consumer computing now occurring on mobile devices, sales of devices
with Windows will determine Microsoft's future. The consumer segment will have
an effect on the enterprise segment as well. Microsoft will then end up
eventually losing all their revenue streams.

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/19/microsofts-business-in-
thre...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/19/microsofts-business-in-three-
charts/)

~~~
ryanisinallofus
They are betting the farm on Azure and doing what Ballmer had probably been
tasked to do for the last 10 years: wait as long as possible before becoming a
services company.

~~~
12423gsd
Are they really making money with Azure? Isn't that one of the most
competitive markets at the moment? I'd imagine the margins are slim to none as
everyone is trying to price each other out.

~~~
dingle_thunk
... Have you seen their prices?

~~~
reubenbond
... Have you seen their prices?

Correct me of I'm wrong, but aren't they the same or lower?
[http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-chops-azure-prices-to-
match-a...](http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-chops-azure-prices-to-match-
amazons-latest-reductions-7000027898)

------
dkopi
One can only hope jetbrains will offer a cheaper personal license for
Resharper now that it can be used on the community edition as well

~~~
radicalbyte
They would be very smart to do this, because with Roslyn around it won't be
long before Visual Studio itself is feature comparable to R#.

~~~
CmonDev
They really, really need to finish their Nitra project ASAP. R# for any
language including custom sounds very competitive.

------
redstripe
As a side note, since many people here use python, VS has great Python
integration: [http://pytools.codeplex.com/](http://pytools.codeplex.com/)

~~~
mousetraps
node.js too
[https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/](https://nodejstools.codeplex.com/)

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felixrieseberg
This is a great time to reiterate that startups receive Microsoft's software
for free, obviously including all versions of Visual Studio.

Check out BizSpark.com or get in touch with me if you happen to be a YC
company (felix.rieseberg@microsoft.com).

(Also, sorry for popping up in all the threads - We have a lot of threads here
right now about VS options and I want to make sure that people know that they
might be able to get VS Ultimate for free.)

~~~
gretful
The first hit is always free. This is a trap for new companies. Microsoft
doing what it does best.

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oldspiceman
This is great for anybody who's had the pleasure of using MonoDevelop

~~~
teamonkey
I wonder how else it will affect Unity3D development, now that the real .Net
stack can work on other platforms.

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mark-r
I hope this includes MFC and ATL for C++. I've kept my version 6.0 from 1998
just for that, but it's too painful to use these days.

~~~
cremno
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/11/12/visu...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/11/12/visual-
studio-2015-preview-visual-studio-community-2013-visual-
studio-2013-update-4-and-more.aspx):

>VS Community enables you to develop everything from Windows Forms and WPF and
MFC to Windows Phone and Store to Azure and ASP.NET

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flyrain
Love Visual Studio. If a Mac/Linux version is provided, that's perfect for me.

~~~
Guvante
Visual Studio doesn't run on the .NET runtime entirely and uses WPF. Thus all
of the C++ logic and WPF itself would need to be ported for that to happen.

~~~
alkonaut
I suppose there is a lot of windows and C++ black magic going on under the
good in VS, but since all the editing and compiling tools are all managed in
VS 2015 (The OSS "Roslyn" tools are used for compiler, syntax highlighter,
refactoring etc.) and those bits are free for anyone to use, it _should_ be
quite possible for the community to make an IDE for Linux/MacOS that feels a
lot like VS does on windows (Maybe the SharpDevelop team will take on Roslyn?
Haven't heard).

Of course VS is a huge beast of an application and there are thousands of
parts that will be more or less impossible to port straight over because of
ties with windows (Profiler for example).

~~~
Guvante
I would agree, although I doubt Microsoft will lead the charge there. The
money is in selling MSDN licenses which means they are going to be on Windows
anyway.

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EGreg
Sounds like "the evil empire" of old realized that releasing its platform as
Open Source would revitalize its platform.

This is eventually what happens, after the first mover monopolists collect
their rent for a decade. I don't mean it in a bad way, just as an observation
of repeatable economic trends.

After all, now Microsoft needs more app developers to develop Windows apps and
compete on the mobile front.

~~~
alkonaut
It's mostly them becoming a service company (Azure) rather than a software
company (Windows, Office). The more people that can push code to azure, the
more money they will make in the future. So giving people the tools to do that
for free makes a lot of sense. Still charging the big money from the
enterprises of course, because not doing that would be insane.

The mobile thing is relevant of course, but Azure is where they are betting
the farm.

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tomlane11
Wait wait wait so codelens is not locked to Visual Studio Ultimate anymore?
I'm sure that's one of the key questions here?

~~~
patja
I installed the new Community Edition this morning and do not see any codelens
features...so I guess it is still Ultimate only

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thelsdj
So I currently have an VS Pro + MSDN subscription. I need MSDN for running
Windows Server VMs (I dev on a Windows Server 2008 VM currently). Is there any
cheaper version that gives me Windows licenses for my dev systems now that I
don't need to pay for VS Pro?

~~~
radicalbyte
Microsoft run a few programs - Action Pack, DreamSpark, BizSpark. If you
qualify then you get a lot of software for (fairly) little money.

------
giancarlostoro
This is great, now people have Visual Studio as an option for Python
development, I have to say... Python Tools for Visual Studio is A+. I honestly
prefer it to PyCharm, and I use PyCharm on Linux because I don't get to use
VS.

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patja
I'm just glad to have access to the option Debug / Attach to process, one of
the many very useful little features that were annoyingly omitted from the
Express version in the past.

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lbelloq
Let's say I'm an independent developer. Can I
develop/test/distribute/commercialize my applicatons with this license?

~~~
numo16
Yes. From the FAQ:

Q: Who can use Visual Studio Community? A: Here’s how individual developers
can use Visual Studio Community: Any individual developer can use Visual
Studio Community to create their own free or paid apps.

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AlexeyBrin
Really curious if the Community Edition will work with Xamarin.

~~~
alkonaut
Should work with the free tier of Xamarin. Afaik, you can download a free VS +
Free Xamarin and churn out an iOS+Android app using C# immediately.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Xamarin currently offers VS integration only for the Business or Enterprise
editions, the Free tier has no support for VS. You can however use a trial
version of Xamarin (Bussiness or Enterprise) for about 30 days that will let
you build iOS and Android apps with some limitations (the built executable has
a limited life time, one day I think). After 30 days you can buy a Xamarin
license or the tool will revert to the Free Xamarin tier (this one is severely
limited - application size, integration with external libraries and so on).

According to this video [http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-
Studio/Connect-event-...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-
Studio/Connect-event-2014/040) Xamarin (Bussiness or Enterprise) should work
just fine with VS Community.

~~~
alkonaut
They plan to change it, from [http://blog.xamarin.com/microsoft-and-xamarin-
expand-global-...](http://blog.xamarin.com/microsoft-and-xamarin-expand-
global-partnership/)

    
    
      Free Xamarin Starter Edition for Visual Studio Users – 
      Today, Microsoft announced a new, free edition to Visual   
      Studio—Visual Studio Community. Visual Studio Community 
      contains support for extensions, which means it will be 
      Xamarin compatible with from day one. We want to help make   
      Visual Studio Community a tool for anyone to create native
      apps for iOS and Android, so we are announcing our plans to
      enable our freely available Xamarin Starter Edition to work 
      with Visual Studio Community. We are also doubling the size 
      limit on apps that can be created with Xamarin Starter Edition, 
      so that you can build even more capable apps for free. 
      This will be available in the coming weeks.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Thanks, I've seen their blog on other HN thread a few minutes ago. The future
looks good if you write pure C# code, but if you want to use something like
MonoGame you will still need to buy a Xamarin license.

I suppose Xamarin will offer VS support for the Indie license too, doesn't
make much sense to offer support only for the Starter license. The Indie
license allows you to use libraries like MonoGame.

~~~
CmonDev
The logical next step!

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bosstuma1997
Can I code web in VS community like html and css?

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vivekbernard
Ofcourse Yes. Its basically its a modified version (well most modifications
were in the license) of the Visual Studio Professional Edition.

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Mauricio_
Using VS professional 2013. Is this better?

~~~
arjunnarayan
No. This is a slight downgrade from VS professional 2013. But that's the whole
point: that you can now get 95% of the way to VS Pro 2013 at no cost.

~~~
pbz
What's the downgrade?

~~~
omgtehlion
license

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MrDosu
Halleluja!

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projectramo
If MS keeps giving away its software for free, how is it going to make money?
Hopefully it won't ad advertising. Is it because a lot of people become
comfortable with the tools and companies upgrade to the paid version for a few
extra features?

~~~
Guvante
You cannot use Community to make enterprise software. Enterprise software
described the entirety of the people willing to drop $2,000+ a year to use
Visual Studio.

This won't impact their primary market, especially when you consider that MSDN
subscriptions are often considered the primary benefit of using Visual Studio.

~~~
tzs
> You cannot use Community to make enterprise software.

Not quite. You cannot use Community _IN_ an enterprise other than for
contributing to open source, academic research, or classroom learning. There's
no restriction on using it to _MAKE_ enterprise software.

~~~
Guvante
But being in an enterprise is what I was talking about.

And hard as I tried I couldn't find the details as to what that means without
downloading the new version.

~~~
dasiek
[http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=1335...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/download/details.aspx?id=13350) page 10 but I'm not sure if it's only about
organizations up to 5 but it's fine if you are Individual?? : "Example 2: A
Fortune 500 firm has outsourced the development of its store-locator mobile
application to a small agency. The application is not an open source project.
The agency has 5 employees working on the project and would like to use Visual
Studio Community 2013. Since the agency is a contractor developing this
application for the Fortune 500 firm, and since the application is not an open
source project, the agency cannot use Visual Studio Community 2013 for
developing and testing the application. "

