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Microsoft Is Releasing .Net 3.5 Core Libraries Source Code

No more Refletor. Now Visual Studio 2008 will enable you to debug and see the core .Net source making our life easier when trying to understand the “Voodoo Inside”. Not exactly Open Source and doesn’t include the VM or compilers but still an important move towards compatibility between implementations.

Initially Microsoft will release the source (comments included) of the following major core components of .Net:

  • System
  • System.IO
  • System.Collections
  • System.Configuration
  • System.Threading
  • System.Net
  • System.Security
  • System.Runtime
  • System.Text
  • … other major core components …
  • System.Web (ASP.Net)
  • System.Windows and System.Windows.Forms (Windows Presentation Foudation and Windows Forms)
  • System.Data (ADO.Net)
  • System.Xml

Excluded for a few months are the WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), Workflow and LINQ but it is planned.

The source will be licensed under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL) and available to download as a standard install package. You’ll be able to browse and edit the files in any editor of your choice but integration with Visual Studio 2008 will be provided.

You can read a bit more here as well as check the nice screenshots of the Visual Studio 2008 debugging integration.

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8 Responses to “Microsoft Is Releasing .Net 3.5 Core Libraries Source Code”

  1. […] Team Register wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a
    quick excerptThe source will be licensed under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL) and available to download as a standard install package. Youâ?.??.?ll be able to browse and edit the files in
    any editor of your choice but integration with Visual … […]

  2. This is an interesting
    move, but bear in mind that viewing the .NET Framework source prevents people from contributing to the Mono implementation of those libraries.

  3. alexmipego says:

    Its true that we can’t at the present look at it and contribute to Mono, I hope to hear about this from Miguel soon but here’s what I think:

    That rule was more of a guide line to
    avoid people of copy pasting code and eventualy in the future Microsoft could sue Mono. It was also a problem because the legitimacy of seeing that code is not clear… now you’re allowed to see it
    (but still you can’t copy it).

    Lets see what this represents to Mono, a blessing or maybe one more concern?

  4. Jeff Craig says:

    This is a fascinating move, but the Mono
    project is going to have to be very, very, very careful not to submit any code from this release. As interesting as this is, I think it’s apt to cause a lot of headaches for the
    project.

  5. Daedius says:

    So, does this mean by using Visual Studio 2008 and seeing their source through my debug tool I can never work on the mono project?

  6. alexmipego says:

    According to the current project
    rules yes – you can’t contribute to Mono. But I expect it to change, but even if it doesn’t you must keep in mind that it is an optional package as fair as I understand…

  7. Daedius: yes, it will prevent you from contributing to the *corresponding* Mono class libraries. Of course, it won’t stop you contributing to the “independent” Mono libraries like GTK#,
    Mono.Cairo, Mono.Posix and so on, but I expect it will make things difficult for people.

    I can’t see that the Mono contribution rule will change: it’s not just about preventing things as obvious
    as copying/pasting code, but about keeping Mono a legally spotless black-box reimplementation of the specifications.

  8. Ol?.¡ Alex!

    Like Michael says, the rules for contributing to the mono
    project are, and I expect always will be, the same. If you look at MS code through any means, either via reflector or through this source release, you will not be able to contribute to the Mono class
    libraries. Side projects like MonoDevelop and others are not included in this restriction.

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