Having downloaded to the .NET framework source code, I had a chance to look at its license. I cannot comment on the source code and quote it (because of the license), but commenting on the license itself seems fine.

Overall, it is described as a "Reference License", where "Reference use means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging and maintaining your products to run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product."

"You means the licensee of the software, who is not engaged in designing, developing, or testing other software, for a non-Windows operating system, that has the same or substantially the same features or functionality as the software".

To further clarify the idea, when describing the "reference use" Microsoft tells us once more that "reference use does NOT include (a) the right to use the software for purposes of designing, developing, or testing other software, for a non-Windows operating system, that has the same or substantially the same features or functionality as the software" (can you spell M-O-N-O?)

If you begin patent litigation against the Licensor over patents that you think may apply to the software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), your license to the software ends automatically".

Overall, though, what I find totally hilarious is the first statement. I guess someone in the legal department decided the license has to be printed, but the "accept license" window hasn't got a print button. So they added to the license the following:

To print these terms, select the contents of this area and copy then paste into an application that can print text.

Why in the world would I copy the content in an application that CANNOT print text (hard to find anyway) if my goal was to print it, is not fully clear to me... but I'm not a lawyer