Microsoft is making SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition free for Visual Studio Dev Essentials members:
Exciting news! Starting today, SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition is now a free download for Visual Studio Dev Essentials members. We are making this change so that all developers can leverage the capabilities that SQL Server 2014 has to offer for their data solution, and this is another step in making SQL Server more accessible. SQL Server Developer Edition is for development and testing only, and not for production environments or for use with production data.
Visual Studio Dev Essentials is Microsoft’s most comprehensive free developer program ever, with everything you need to build and deploy your app on any platform, including state-of-the-art tools, the power of the cloud, training, and support.
SQL Server 2016 will also be covered under this plan. Â Granted, Developer Edition would not break the bank anyhow, but it does lower (ever so slightly) those barriers to entry, and I think it’ll be a driving point for SQL Server on Linux.