Microsoft opens up a CodePlex project to share the source code of future ASP.NET releases. Currently the ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 sources are available for download.
Last week Scott Guthrie announced the opening of the CodePlex project that Microsoft will "be using to share buildable source for multiple upcoming ASP.NET releases". He also gives instructions for building an ASP.NET MVC release from the source and adds a note concerning licensing:
... the license doesn't enable you to redistribute your custom binary version of ASP.NET MVC (we want to avoid having multiple incompatible ASP.NET MVC versions floating around and colliding with each other). But it does enable you to make fixes to the code, rebuild it, and avoid getting blocked by an interim bug you can't work around.
Scott Hanselman adds some information on how to "enter bugs in the issue tracker or complain in the forums and watch the roadmap as it evolves" as well as some related links.
Some of the questions about the motives, the efforts and the contents of the current source code release are answered by Phil Haack in his Notes About the MVC CodePlex Source Code Release.
According to Phil the CodePlex project is not the live source repository, Microsoft will "periodically ship code to CodePlex when {they] feel [they] have something worth putting out there".
The source for Routing is not included, because Routing "will be part of the .NET Framework and thus its source will eventually be available much like the rest of the .NET Framework source". The ASP.NET unit tests will be published shortly.
As Greg Duncan points out "There's something very cool going on in the Microsoft DevDiv":
They seem to be embracing and living the "source available" life. We saw it in their .Net Reference Source release, the recent Silverlight 2 controls source release and now with the source release of the ASP.NET MVC.
ASP.NET has ever been a special component of the .NET Framework, thanks to Scott Guthrie. It started with previews and full releases outside the .NET Framework release cycle and continues with sharing snapshots of the ASP.NET (MVC) source code repository.
