The Microsoft .NET Framework Source Available for Developers!

Scott Guthrie just made an exciting post, starting with .NET 3.5 and VS 2008 the .NET libraries will have source available! This is quite the boon to developers, the ability to drill down to source level while debugging should lead to more accurate code. Of course there could be a downside, namely developers coding around implementation details rather then the exposed methods. But regardless this is a very cool move by Microsoft. It’s being released under the Microsoft Reference License which doesn’t give you a whole lot of rights (none really, other then to look at the source), but it’s something. Considering how important the framework is to Microsoft this is a bold move. For a truly permissive license check out Mono, here’s hoping there’s no “patent/copyright” pollution there either…