Back to the good old days?
I remember the joys of being a MFC/ATL developer in the 1990s. I could step through all the Microsoft code except for the system DLLs. Thanks to this visibility, I fixed my bugs faster, got an excellent view of how the framework underneath me worked, and got to see a lot of good, production quality code. This last bit-- "seeing production quality code" -- really helped me improve as a developer.
So, as many blogs are echoing, the source for the .NET 3.5, VS 2008 BCL will also be visible. See the announcement here:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx
What does this mean for Lutz Roeder's Reflector? To me, this means he proved his point-- the code is plainly visible and people love having access to it. Now, Lutz can put his prodigious skills to use elsewhere. (This is another 'good thing'! Lutz is really talented!)
To me, this is great news. It's about time developers who've only seen .NET get the last thing I miss from my C++ coding days-- full access to the code they rely upon. I hope their skills improve too!