>>THe framework is free.
>
>Ok, good, but in the other message you just did, it says that it is available to MSDN subscribers. Does that mean I need to purchase a subscription to MSDN to obtain it? Or, what did it mean exactly?

You seems to mix 2 things:
-the framework (which is free) is only the run-time.
-Visual Studio .Net is what you need to buy (or that comes in MSDN) to develop application that runs on the framework.