[DarkStar851]

.NET itself has always been "free" (as in beer), it's just VS they made people pay for. They've had a community edition since VS2012 at least, possibly earlier but that's as far back as my brain goes.

The Community edition is pretty full-featured, it's only missing some TFS integration stuff, some test suite stuff and advanced profiling. I'd compare it to IntelliJ's free/pro model.

[dogma1138]

Before CE it was Visual Studio Express which was also pretty much the same.

[pseudalopex]

They also made people pay for Windows.

[jetti]

Community Edition has restrictions on use for organizations.