Microsoft releasing .NET framework source code
I don't know whether to say "congratulations on a brilliant move forward" or "about time, took you long enough". Microsoft has pinched every other bright idea out of Java and done it better. Hopefully that grand tradition will not falter here.
To the nay-sayers I reply that the source is revealed, therefore it is open-source on account of not being closed-source.
I'd like to see Microsoft go all the way and set up a mechanism for direct feedback.
Irrespective of the rantings of the open-source faithful, no-one is going to fiddle with code that works. But here and there, there are bugs. Not many, which is a tribute to the framework builders, but every now and then you find one.
The big problem is that you really can't change framework code. Extensions are fine, they don't change signed code. CodeProject is already going great guns. But you can't change framework code because from a runtime perspective it lives in signed assemblies in the GAC. I suppose you could put updated framework binaries in the application folder and get them used that way, but how would you persuade the Visual Studio IDE to use your own version instead of the one in the GAC? Presumably it can be done - the IDE team surely has some procedure that allows them to test combinations of framework and IDE. Perhaps someone from Microsoft can cast some light on this.
From my own point of view the value of the source-code is twofold. First, it's one big how-to. Second, it can be very instructive to see what the framework does with the parameters you pass it. When the documentation is unclear on the meaning of parameters this will be a godsend.