A bit of advertising here:

So please consider joining the pickit-devel project and add some chip 
support to PICKit 2 like 16F627A/628A/648A (already supported by 
firmware) and others. You can also hack the firmware as well.
http://groups.google.com/group/pickit-devel/

Mark Rages and Jeff Post are working on the python version and 
C version of alternative host program for PICkit 2. The python 
version (aka pyk) is now working under Linux and support quite
some chips already including 16F7x and 16F7x7 which has not
been supported by Microchip Windows host program yet.

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu 
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 9:58 PM
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: Re: [EE][PIC] Why programmers use PICs as controllers?
...

The PicKit 2 comes with open source software. I agree that the
database of devices is a little bit dense to figure out, but if I
needed to, I'm sure I can add support for other devices to it as well.
As you said yourself: most of it is in the software, and with the
PicKit 2, the software is easy to change.

Greetings,
Maarten Hofman.
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