README.md
WCF -- Windows Communication Foundation Client Libraries
This repository contains the .NET Core version of the Windows Communication Foundation client libraries.
It's a subset of the .NET Framework version of Windows Communication Foundation and currently supports the same API surface available for Windows 8.1 Store apps. It is used to build .NET Core apps, including Windows UWP and ASP.NET Core. These client libraries are suitable for mobile devices or on mid-tier servers to communicate with existing WCF services.
By targeting .NET Core, WCF now has the opportunity for much wider reach across PCs, laptops, mobile devices, Xbox, HoloLens etc. It can also be ported to other operating systems since it runs on .NET Core, which is adding support for Linux and OS X.
We have deliberately opened the doors to the code early in the process so that you can be part of the effort by contributing to the project or providing feedback. Several features are still a work in progress, and we expect to enable them as soon as possible. Click on Issues to follow how we are prioritizing the work. Our goal is to achieve feature parity with the corresponding Windows Store libraries and then improve based on your feedback.
How to Engage, Contribute and Provide Feedback
Some of the best ways to contribute are to try things out, file bugs, and join in design conversations.
Want to get more familiar with what's going on in the code?
- Pull requests: Open/Closed
, 
and 
changes
Looking for something to work on? The list of up-for-grabs issues is a great place to start. See some of our guides for more details:
You are also encouraged to start a discussion by filing a New Issue.
You can discuss .NET OSS more generally in the .NET Foundation forums.
Want to chat with other members of the WCF community?
This project has adopted the code of conduct defined by the Contributor Covenant to clarify expected behavior in our community. For more information see the .NET Foundation Code of Conduct.
Reporting security issues and security bugs
Security issues and bugs should be reported privately, via email, to the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) secure@microsoft.com. You should receive a response within 24 hours. If for some reason you do not, please follow up via email to ensure we received your original message. Further information, including the MSRC PGP key, can be found in the Security TechCenter.
WCF Library Components
This repo contains the following library components.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
System.ServiceModel.Primitives  |
Provides the common types used by all of the WCF libraries. |
System.ServiceModel.Http  |
Provides the types that permit SOAP messages to be exchanged using Http (example: BasicHttpBinding). |
System.ServiceModel.NetTcp  |
Provides the types that permit SOAP messages to be exchanged using TCP (example: NetTcpBinding). |
System.ServiceModel.Duplex  |
Provides the types that permit 2-way ("duplex") exchanges of messages. This package is deprecated, 6.0 is the last release of this package. |
System.ServiceModel.Security  |
Provides the types that support additional security features. This package is deprecated, 6.0 is the last release of this package. |
System.ServiceModel.Federation  |
Provides the types that allow security communications with SOAP messages using WS-Federation. |
System.Web.Services.Description  |
Contains classes that enable you to publicly describe an XML Web service by using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL). |
System.ServiceModel.NetFramingBase |
Contains common types for NetFraming based transports such as NetTcp and NetNamedPipe. |
System.ServiceModel.NetNamedPipe |
Provides the types that permit SOAP messages to be exchanged using TCP (example: NetTcpBinding). |
License
This project is licensed under the MIT license.
.NET Foundation
WCF is a .NET Foundation project.
Related Projects
There are many .NET related projects on GitHub.
- The .NET home repo links to 100s of .NET projects, from Microsoft and the community.
- The .NET Core repo links to .NET Core related projects from Microsoft.
- The ASP.NET home repo is the best place to start learning about ASP.NET Core.
- https://dotnetfoundation.org/projects is a good place to discover .NET Foundation projects.
The Windows Communication Foundation Story
Windows Communication Foundation has been part of the full .NET Framework for a number of years. Microsoft continues to develop this version and has made the source code available via Reference Source.
With the introduction of Windows 8, Microsoft made some of the client-oriented functionality available in the Windows Store. This allowed mobile devices to interact with WCF services that were built with the .NET framework version.
This new WCF project differs from these other products in 2 ways. First, it is built on .NET so that it can be used on a wider range of devices and operating system. Second, it is open-source and managed by the .NET Foundation. Microsoft builds and publishes NuGet packages from the code in this repository.
WCF service applications can be created for .NET with the CoreWCF project.