In a blog post , Microsoft has announced that its model-based machine learning framework Infer.NET is now available as open source software under an MIT license for free use in commercial applications. The post also recounts Infer.NET’s journey: Development of the framework, initially envisioned as a research tool, began back in 2004. It was first released in 2008, for academic Use. As a result, there have been hundreds of research papers published using Infer.NET.

Over time, the framework has been increasingly used for model-based machine learning , and has even won an award for aiding research in epidemiology, genetic causes of disease, deforestation, and asthma. Microsoft itself uses Infer.NET as the machine learning engine in Office, Xbox, its cloud service Azure, and a number games.

Infer.NET is now available for free on GitHub . Microsoft also provides tutorials and examples and a User Guide for the framework.