Responding to the growth of enterprise software development teams, Microsoft will allow occasional contributors to access the Visual Studio Online project development environment at no cost.
"What we learned from our customers is that they need lots of people to participate. There are different levels of involvement in a project that are critical," said Nicole Herskowitz, Microsoft senior director of product marketing for Visual Studio "We wanted to make sure that the people who are not the core of a development project participate."
Beginning Wednesday, Microsoft has added a new licensing option for Visual Studio Online, allowing an unlimited number of contributors which Microsoft calls stakeholders to access projects at no cost. Stakeholders have some, but not all of the privileges that full-fledged licensees enjoy.