ISVs ask - we deliver (eventually...) - Source Code for Framework will be made available

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Apologies. This was a really important announcement at the start of October which I completely forgot to blog about!

Many ISV have asked me over the years for access to the source code for the .NET Framework to help them resolve complex development and support issues for their customers.

In the final release of Visual Studio 2008, we will make available the source to much of the .NET Framework Libraries under the Microsoft Reference License.  This means that anyone who accepts the license will be able to browse and view source code.  The set of libraries initially includes  the Base Class Libraries (System namespace, IO, Text, Collections, CodeDom, Regular Expressions, etc), ASP.NET, WinForms, and WPF.  We expect to add to this list over time. 

In addition, we will introduce a capability in Visual Studio 2008 to allow .NET developers who are debugging applications, to debug not only into their own source code, but also debug into the .NET Framework source code using Visual Studio. 

Great news.