Microsoft Announces Reference Source Availability for the .NET Framework

Microsoft is releasing the source code for .NET Framework base class libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which is available here: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/referencelicense.mspx. This license allows viewing of source code, but not copying or re-compiling. The source code will be downloadable and viewable by anyone who accepts the license agreement. In addition, Microsoft 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 into .NET Framework source code using Visual Studio. With this capability, when developers are stepping through code, if they wish, they will be able to step into the source code for the .NET base class libraries.