Wow! Microsoft is making available, starting with the core libraries of .net 3.5, the full, commented source code for the .Net Framework. ScottGu posted about it here, and ScottH has a podcast about it here. Not only are they releasing the source code, but they are doing it in such a way as to make it actually useful to the end developer, by offering full support in Visual Studio 2008. Not only can you download the source and install it, but Visual Studio 2008 will be smart enough to go out to a server hosted by Microsoft and dynamically download the correct source file. By correct, I mean, that the service is smart enough to know what patches, service packs, etc you have installed. Chalk this up as one huge reason to jump on the VS 2008 band wagon.
For those of you in legal, the code is released under the Microsoft Reference License, which in a nutshell, states you can review, but not compile. Now at first, I thought, who cares if you can’t recompile, but then I got to thinking, and remembered a project someone was telling me about where they used reflector to view the source and implement an asp.net server running off the compact framework. Given the use of the compact framework on my [TsiCurrentProject], I could see a similar need arising. I will have to monitor this closely and see what other people say, as I’m sure I won’t be the only one looking to implement some full framework features on our closed WinCE systems.