Telerik has announced the release of Telerik Kendo UI Core, a package of free and open industry-leading UI tools and JavaScript framework features, including Telerik Kendo UI Mobile.

The sophisticated set of components for web application development, Kendo UI is now available in its open source version on Github. It offers over forty framework and widgets and components that utilize not only the site but also in the creation of mobile applications.

Telerik released this package to give back to the developer community for its long-time support for Telerik and its products. The package will be released under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, allowing developers to use the library in both commercial and non-commercial projects and also to contribute to the library itself.

Interested JavaScript developers now have access to some of the code of Telerik framework for developing with HTML5 and jQuery. The open source community can now operate up to 38 widgets including all of Kendo UI Mobile, and all of the core framework features, such as templates, data binding, and input validation to create user interfaces. Among the elements written in JavaScript, which can probably use well with frameworks like AngularJS include, for example functions for automatic completion, Date and DateTime Picker, sliders, toolbars, and progress bar.

“We wanted to expose a broader part of the Web community to what we have to offer,” said Brandon Satrom, director of product management at Telerik. “We wanted to make it easier for developers that are interested in using Kendo UI or interested in using a UI library to have access to a UI library that is professionally built, and to be able to use it for free in their commercial apps, open-source apps, or really whatever they choose to do.”

Kendo UI provides fast, clean, and configurable HTML5 UI widgets as part of a jQuery-based framework to support modern web development. The UI enables developers to work the appropriate version in other libraries and view results in a variety of form factors. It comes with a templating library that performs faster than jQuery Templates, optimized animations leveraging CSS3 hardware acceleration and cutting-edge UI virtualization. Kendo UI Mobile enables developers to focus on their app’s function and content and let the Kendo UI framework handle differences between platforms like iOS and Android.

Every time Telerik updates its tool suite there’s something giving developers and operations a greater ability to handle the ever-expanding responsibilities that DevOps put on development teams. Last year, the company released major of updates to its products. The R2 Version of Telerik Test Studio released in December last year added built-in cross-browser test recording, subscription-based pricing and additional purchasing options, as well as load testing of web services and mobile traffic functionality. Telerik’s other solution Icenium service is designed to automate tasks of all development operations in the cloud, making cloud services to all components and tools–SDK, compilers, tools for testing, and debugging.

Open source seems to be the flavor of companies this year. Microsoft’s recent decision to open source its ‘Roslyn’ (now the .NET Compiler Platform) compiler, giving developers access to the C# and VB APIs, is a striking recent example. Microsoft then made WinJS, the JavaScript library that enables a native-quality experience in Windows Runtime apps using familiar web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, licensed under Apache 2.0.

Top photo: Courtesy Telerik, old logo for Kendo UI.