I haven't been able to unearth any information about the release date; and was pointed here by a friend because he presumed Hosts would know more about the Framework than I.

Web Applications I am in the process of giving birth to are based on the ASPX 2.0 Framework through Visual Studio 2005 and the Beta of the Framework; so I do kind of need dates for this information.

So does anybody have any information about the release? Even conjecture :D

I'd say early Summer, as far as I know there isn't a RC yet.

Thanks. Makes sense with the general Beta time of Visual Studio too.

An RC?

RC is "Release Candidate". As Matt said, you can expect it later this year. .NET 2.0 will likely officially launch at the same time as Visual Studio 2005 as it doesn't make much sense to ship it without the tools to make it easier to use.

Ah yes! Release Candidate yeah...

...does that mean; that by the way you said release candidate that the Beta Pack of .NET 2.0 would theoretically work for testing purposes on a Windows Server running say 2003?

I think the development cycle is usually: Alpha, Beta, RC1, RC2, RC3 then final release.

As far as I know you're not "allowed" to use the beta versions for deployment only testing. The RC candidates are usually very solid from Microsoft, as long as you're not doing shared hosting and you are happy with stability of .Net 2.0 when its reaches RC then there should be no problem rolling with it.

I have tested the SQL 2005 and Net 2.0 , for those planning to use, better get your server installed with DVD drives. The installation files are super big!

Beta 2 will be an exception and come with a "go live" license.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/beta2changes.aspx

I have read that it could be early as March, but MS is rarely on time;)