The .NET Framework 3.0 is here folks...

Microsoft has always had quite a bad rep with screwing up utterly cool product names (think Avalon and Indigo just to name a few) into very dull and boring names. But this time they have really outdone themselves. Not by thinking up a bad name, no sir... by thinking up a completly illogical name.

The wise people at Microsoft have decided to rename all the WinFX technologies to "the .NET Framework 3.0"... And to get back to the dull and boring naming conventions, they have decided to rename InfoCard to "Windows CardSpace (WCS)"... that even tops "Windows Communication Foundation".

So the .NET Framework 3,0 actually contains technology which requires the .NET Framework 2.0 to run... like the CLR 2.0, C# 2.0, Visual Studio 2005.... etc, now isn't that werid? To install the .NET Framework 3.0 you need the ,NET Framework 2.0.

The thing is that having the .NET Framework 3.0 isn't bad per sé but renaming a product to just that out of nowhere isn't the smartest thing to do. They claim they have done this to reduce confusion amongst customers... I say it will only create more confusion...

It will be interesting to see if the next version of C# will skip the 3.0 version and go straight to 4.0 so that they can get their act together on the product versioning schemes. Bad move Microsoft.

Oh well, in the end we will all just adjust and live on.