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In a Microsoft TechDays seminar, i heard a speker saying that Microsoft's .Net Library can be modified to optimize for your specific purpose and performance (He didn't said it exactly above, but ment to say it).

I wanted to know that is it Possible to do so, wouldn't then .Net become a kind of open source library

AstroCB
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Shekhar_Pro
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  • They might license the code to certain companies for the purpose of that company bundling an optimized version with their application, but this situation does not qualify in any way as open source. It's highly unlikely that they will be releasing the framework libraries as open source. – cdhowie Dec 19 '10 at 06:19
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    Seriously, open-source is not a *technical* thing. It is more of a *legal* thing. It does not matter if it is possible. It matters if it is allowed. – R. Martinho Fernandes Dec 19 '10 at 06:21
  • @Martinho I am not asking whether it is legal or not, but possible or not. And if it is said in a Microsoft Seminar, it does have some credibility. (Even iPhone jail-braking was not legal before) Any way thanx for the point – Shekhar_Pro Dec 19 '10 at 06:29
  • @Shekhar_Pro: Check out a tool called .NET Reflector. You will probably find it interesting, because you can use it to reverse-engineer the source code of any purely .NET assembly. – Merlyn Morgan-Graham Dec 19 '10 at 06:40
  • @Martinho - On the contrary: if it is possible it will be done, regardless of whether it is allowed or not. – Kobi Dec 19 '10 at 07:10
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    @Kobi: still won't make it open-source. – R. Martinho Fernandes Dec 19 '10 at 07:12

5 Answers5

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What he meant is that the language that .net code is compiled to (IL) is an ISO standard. Anyone can therefore get it and write an own runtime.

Read more bout CLR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Language_Runtime or Mono http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

jgauffin
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I'm not sure whether Microsoft are following this path for the entire .Net framework, but you can download the source code for WCF at http://wcf.codeplex.com/.

If you find a bug you can make the change in your own copy and notify the WCF team how you fixed it. You can also make changes to the code so that it performs best for your specific implementation.

I'm not sure exactly how the licensing works, but it is not technically Open Source.

Greg Sansom
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Have a look at the fourth point of the Section->Alternative_implementations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework#Alternative_implementations

Gaurav
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  • Not what i was looking for but your link provided me an intersting link to ScotGu's blog http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx thanx . – Shekhar_Pro Dec 19 '10 at 11:04
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The .NET Micro Framework was open-sourced not long ago. As were IronPython and IronRuby.

Beyond that it gets difficult. SSCLI20 was released 5 years ago but not as open source. Its Shared Source license allows it to be used to implement your own CLR, the Mono project took advantage of that. Selected portions of the framework source code are released under the Reference Source license. You can look at it to assist in debugging but you can't modify it.

Hans Passant
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Try having a look at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx