.NET Framework is the original realisation of .NET, it is a software development framework for building the applications. It can be launched on Windows. .NET Developers Framework is a collection of the technologies for creation of the applications for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android etc.

.NET Core is a cross-platform open-source framework for building the applications. It is a new interpretation of .NET Framework that can be launched across different operating systems and enables the development of the applications for various platforms.

.NET is a unified .NET platform for building the applications. It is a new generation of Microsoft’s .NET Core. .NET 6 is an open-source platform for the development of software such as web, mobile, desktop applications, IoT, and games for different OS.

History and Interesting Facts
Unofficially the development of .NET Framework started in 1999. The official announcement about the development of new technology took place at the Microsoft press conference on the 13th of January, 2000. On this date Bill Gates handed over the management of the software company to Steve Ballmer. Gates retained the post as chairman and added an additional title as chief software architect. To summarize Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft has an incredible opportunity to revolutionize the Internet user experience. In order to do that they will deliver the next generation services platform. So Bill Gates should be 100 percent focused on helping architect that.

Finally, after a few years of active development the world saw this revolutionary platform. The first version of Microsoft .NET Framework was officially released on the 13th of February, 2002. Since the release of the first .NET Framework version nine more upgrades took place. The final version of .NET Framework was 4.8.

.NET Core is an open-source, cross-platform framework (Windows, Mac, Linux) that can be defined as a successor to .NET Framework. It is a modern analogue of the .NET Framework. Microsoft announced development of .NET Core on 12th of November, 2014. .NET Core had an official release on 27th of June, 2016. Microsoft updated .NET Core and released its new versions till 3.1. However, in November 2020 the newest version of .NET Core was shipped as .NET 5. “Core” was removed from the name and version 4.0 was skipped to avoid the confusion with .NET Framework.

.NET 6 is the next major November 2021 upgrade of the .NET platform. Microsoft has already published .NET 6 and it could be downloaded from the official Microsoft website. According to the information the release of dot NET 7 is planned for November 2022. The most relevant updates as well as news about .NET 6 and .NET 7 can be found in official Microsoft’s documentation.