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I know slashdotters loath Ms-PL, but not all of the projects use Ms-PL anyway.
If you had bothered to check the license of the listed projects you'd see that some of them use GPL or LGPL (the only licenses that slashdotters appear to respect).

For example, the PHPExcel, which allows PHP code to read/write Excel 2007 files, uses LGPL.
Still other projects use custom licenses, like the GoTraxxx project.

Microsoft's own projects use MS licenses like Ms-PL and Ms-CL (both pending OSI-certification) but non-MS projects can use any license the devs choose to use.

I know slashdotters loath Ms-PL, but not all of the projects use Ms-PL anyway.
If you had bothered to check the license of the listed projects you'd see that some of them use GPL or LGPL (the only licenses that slashdotters appear to respect).

For example, the PHPExcel, which allows PHP code to read/write Excel 2007 files, uses LGPL.
Still other projects use custom licenses, like the GoTraxxx project.

Microsoft's own projects use MS licenses like Ms-PL and Ms-CL (both pending OSI-certification) but non-MS projects can use any license the devs choose to use.

Ms-PL is pending OSI-certification.

But not all of the projects use Ms-PL anyway.
If you had bothered to check the license of the listed projects you'd see that some of them use GPL or LGPL (the only licenses that slashdotters appear to respect).

For example, the PHP Excel, which allows PHP code to read/write Excel 2007 files, uses LGPL.

Here is a project an acquaintance of mine recently posted on codeplex because he does not have time to maintain it. It's more or less a Quicksilver clone for windows, with plugin architecture and everything. Pretty cool, hopefully someday someone else will have time to pick up where he left off. It certainly has lots of promise.

http://www.codeplex.com/kodachi/

Sorry about that. Try this: http://www.codeplex.com/CodePlex/Wiki/View.aspx?ti tle=Project%20hosting%20requirements&referringTitl e=CodePlex%20FAQ

A number of the projects on CodePlex use GPL v.2, no mention of the Ms-PL that you link to on a completely different site.

Here is an example from one of the projects cited in TFA: http://www.codeplex.com/ddotnet/Project/License.as px

Last i heard, it would only create some sort of bastardized python code that was no longer cross platform.

That's not correct; IronPython runs on Mono or .NET, so it will run on any Mono supported OS as well as Windows.

You may mean that IronPython scripts are not 100% compatible with a CPython implementation. Well, duh! Even different versions of CPython aren't 100% compatible! Jython isn't 100% compatible with CPython. IronPython is fairly compatible with CPython 2.4.4; the list of differences is available here, so you can avoid them if you ever want to run your code on different Python systems.

The big advantage IronPython has is the integration with .NET. It's trivial to access .NET libraries from IronPython, while CPython doesn't make it easy. I'd expect migration mostly from cPython to IronPython (the biggest issue I had was regex related). If you don't want .NET integration, stay with cPython.

Anyone else have a bad feeling abut this?

Wow. Cool proyect.

Chris DiBona of Google Inc. has asked the question if the OSI license submission ment that Microsoft would "stop using the market confusing term Shared Source." While I disagree on several things, I think this question deserves a reasonable answer. Rather than answering the question, instead Bill Hilf provided the excuse that "the reasons we continued to call it the 'Shared Source' program was to acknowledge that these licenses had not been approved by the OSI." [1]
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Based on what was said by Bill Hilf, a project covered under MS-CL or MS-PL should be referred in Microsoft marketing as a "Shared Source" application. But with the Sharedpoint Learning Kit, covered by the MS-CL [2], the term used by Microsoft is "open source application." [3] Independent of approval by the OSI, Microsoft has already pre-approved it's use of "Shared Source" and "open source" as interchangeable terms in a way that appears to be an attempt to purposely confuse. This could even be seen as a method to disrupt the moment that the previous open source terminology had gain in the popular press. Regardless of the intention, Microsoft's use of SS and OS as interchangeable terms is not consistent with Bill Hilf's claim.
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So, this leads back to DiBona's question which is still left without a reasonable answer. Will Microsoft stop using the marketing term Shared Source as a method to confuse? If Microsoft is serious about working with the OSI, why is SS already used as an interchangeable term before the OSI has even approved the licenses?
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[1] http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:1338 5:200708:mkohfpmjekmjelobgffa
[2] http://www.codeplex.com/SLK/Project/License.aspx
[3] http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/choice.mspx

You really should take a look around CodePlex to see a few.

If you are a PHP shop, you probably could use Phalanger to compile PHP into .NET CIL.
If you are using Python, you could use IronPython.NET.
Just because upper-management has decided on .NET, does not mean you have to also give up your favorite programming language.
You could probably even keep a Linux workstation using Mono for testing the .NET apps.

Only the system administrators with no Windows experience need be worried at your office... not the developers.

Surprisingly Microsoft does sort of support Open Source http://www.codeplex.com/ but mainly source that only compiles or works on their applications and in the majority of cases DirectX. If you are a good programmer that has a good familiarity with MS languages and also Linux/Unix languages particularly with regard to porting the DirectX calls to X11 then it is possible to port MS Open Source code.

Actually in some of cases it is easier to see what the MS centric source does then all you need is to pick an appropriate language or languages on Linux/Unix that will let you duplicate what the software does. Of course you take a chance on infringing Copyright, but your code will be different. Actually the best way is for the original writer of the MS centric software to actually do the porting and in many ways they really do the Open Source Community and themselves a great service.

They do support folks Developing on their platforms, just check out http://www.codeplex.com/ for examples of community develped open source code on MS products.

You should also checkout the http://www.codeplex.com/dynamicsilverlight CodePlex project. It is open source Silverlight samples written on top of the DLR. I'm sitting in the DLR talk at MIX right now. :-) Miguel de Icaza is sitting two rows in front of me. Not to brag, but I am a bit excited :-).

Read this article http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2123859,00.as p as it's a bit more interesting. The open source bits are the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) and the IronPython language. The DLR sits on top of .NET, so if you are using Mono and IronPython, then I would assume that you would then have all the source from top to bottom.

The MS stuff is here http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython

This time I even checked my links :-)

There's plenty of choice on Windows. The only difference is that these choices involve paying money for things whose worth you can't evaluate until you've used them for longer than a month.

If you're going to claim that you have to pay for everything on Windows, you probably ought to choose better examples.

IDEs - visual studio, eclipse, netbeans, dev-c++, codewarrior, just to name a few I've used

Visual Studio (Express versions), Eclipse, NetBeans, Dev-C++ -- all free

The various .NET languages

Again, free. You don't need anything but a text editor and the .NET SDK (free) to build .NET applications. Also, other languages like F# (variant of ML) and IronPython (uh ... Python on .NET) are free as well. In fact, IronPython is even open source.

Databases

SQL Server Express, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, all free. Sure, SQL Server (non-Express), Oracle, and db2 are not free, but Oracle and db2 are not free on Linux either.

Webservers, IIS, apache, or something else?

IIS is "free" (comes with the OS you paid for), and Apache is obviously free as well.

If you're just moaning about how Microsoft has a large vertically integrated set of tools, well, there's Java. Nobody does this, because its stupid and they have the choice not to.

They have the choice not to moan about Microsoft's vertically integrated toolset? Or they have the choice not to use Java?

For independent or small developers, an integrated set of tools isn't really all that important (though nice). For a medium to large business, it's critical if you want to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time without reinventing the wheel over and over again. That toolset doesn't have to be Microsoft, but they do provide a compelling set of developer utilities (Visual Studio is easily one of the best IDEs available for any price, for example). That's what the article was getting at -- when it comes to developers, Microsoft Gets It(tm) (queue Ballmer's infamous "Developers developers developers" video here).

From the CodePlex site; http://www.codeplex.com/CodePlex/Wiki/View.aspx?ti tle=Project%20hosting%20requirements&referringTitl e=CodePlex%20FAQ

      1. You must choose a license for your project (license resources: Open Source License page on Wikipedia)
      2. It must be an ongoing project (no "abandoned" projects)
      3. It must have source code (no non-software projects)

Look #2, it must be an ongoing project, it cannot be an abadoned project.
Microsoft is gonna abandon FoxPro?

My computer is over 3 years old and I dont have any issues for any of the effects on vista. Regarding the memory issue, it uses loads of memory if available for cache, anyways if you needed it back for a game or something, its releases it back for you. This is a very good thing :) In regards to multi-desktops, I'm using Vista Virtual Desktops, which is brilliant. you can get more info here http://www.codeplex.com/vdm. I like vista. Speak soon Linux/Mac lovers ;)

It's still being developed, but works pretty well so far.

Moodle is a large GPL PHP project that has benefited from Microsoft funding. Last year Microsoft paid Moodle core developers to add MS SQL Server support in Moodle to let it work better in institutions used to Microsoft platforms.

      http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=57989

The developers actually used the chance to revamp their whole database abstraction layer, effectively adding support for a number of other commercial databases as well (Oracle, Interbase etc). ;-)

Microsoft also developed Sharepoint web parts for Moodle, and an extension for Word that allows teachers to publish straight into Moodle.

      http://www.codeplex.com/Moodle2003WP

Yes, it's true there was a business case for Microsoft, because some very high profile institutions can now switch to using MS SQL, but I think overall it was a win-win for all concerned.

It is a great tool in my opinion and easy to integrate with existing ASP.Net applications.

But What I really like about Microsoft Ajax for .Net 2.0 was the Ajax Control Toolkit (separately available w/ source)

http://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.as px?ProjectName=AtlasControlToolkit

Not any more, or were you expecting that once the project had real value MS would be supporting Mono?

The current project page.

Don't forget IronPython:
http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName =IronPython

Not only C#, it could be just about any language which has a .Net compiler. Iron Python 1.0 just got released, which works with Mono as well. There are many others too, including Boo, Nemerle, an experimental Ruby.Net. Mono+Gnome might eventually be the reason for mainstream Linux desktop acceptance (with applications being compatible on Windows and Linux), as .Net apps get more popular. In the MS world, the .Net Framework is now the sole platform to build new apps.

So I really wouldn't worry about the "shared source" write-up. It's an unusual choice of license, but it is considered Free Software and Open Source

Q: Is this license OSI compliant?
A: This license has not been submitted to OSI, but it allows developers to take full advantage of a dynamic language on the CLR and to have the freedom to distribute their works for the benefit of the community at large. The license is half of a page long and very straight forward. We believe it stands up to what developers demand of an "open" license.

We believe it stands up to what developers demand of an "open" license

[IronPython] [ANN] IronPython 1.0 released today!
Jim Hugunin Jim.Hugunin at microsoft.com
Tue Sep 5 13:27:12 PDT 2006

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I'm extremely happy to announce that we have released IronPython 1.0 today!
http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython

I started work on IronPython almost 3 years ago. My initial motivation for the project was to understand all of the reports that I read on the web claiming that the Common Language Runtime (CLR) was a terrible platform for Python and other dynamic languages. I was surprised to read these reports because I knew that the JVM was an acceptable platform for these languages. About 9 years ago I'd built an implementation of Python that ran on the JVM originally called JPython and later shortened to Jython. This implementation ran a little slower than the native C-based implementation of Python (CPython), but it was easily fast enough and stable enough for production use - testified to by the large number of Java projects that incorporate Jython today.

I wanted to understand how Microsoft could have screwed up so badly that the CLR was a worse platform for dynamic languages than the JVM. My plan was to take a couple of weeks to build a prototype implementation of Python on the CLR and then to use that work to write a short pithy article called, "Why the CLR is a terrible platform for dynamic languages". My plans quickly changed as I worked on the prototype, because I found that Python could run extremely well on the CLR - in many cases noticeably faster than the C-based implementation. For the standard pystone benchmark, IronPython on the CLR was about 1.7x faster than the C-based implementation.

The more time I spent working on IronPython and with the CLR, the more excited I became about its potential to finally deliver on the vision of a single common platform for a broad range of languages. At that same time, I was invited to come out to Microsoft to present IronPython and to talk with members of the CLR team about technical issues that I was running into. I had a great time that day working through these issues with a group of really smart people who all had a deep understanding of virtual machines and language implementation. After much reflection, I decided to join the CLR team at Microsoft where I could work with the platform to make it an even better target for dynamic languages and be able to have interesting technical discussions like that every day.

The first few months at Microsoft were a challenge as I learned what was involved in working at a large company. However, once the initial hurdle was over I started experiencing the things that motivated me to come here in the first place. The team working on dynamic languages in general and IronPython in particular began to grow and I got to have those great technical discussions again about both how to make IronPython as good as it could be and how to make the CLR an even better platform. We began to take advantage of the great new features for dynamic languages already shipping in .NET 2.0 such as DynamicMethods, blindingly fast delegates and a new generics system that was seamlessly integrated with the existing reflection infrastructure.

We were also able to release IronPython publicly from Microsoft with a BSD-style license. In the agile spirit of the project, we put out a new release of IronPython once every three weeks (on average) over the course of the project. This helped us connect well with our daring early adopters and receive and incorporate their feedback to make IronPython better. We've had countless excellent discussions on the mailing list on everything from supporting value types to calling over

First he says that Microsoft Atlas is open source.

Last I checked, neither Atlas nor GWT were open source in any sense of the word,

Last I checked, neither Atlas nor GWT were open source in any sense of the word,

Check out Phalanger - PHP compiler for .NET and you can use the entire .NET Framework in your PHP apps right away. And even if you're not interested in .NET, it will significantly speed up your apps.

There's really no point in waiting for Zend Framework or anything made by the PHP group ;)

http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName =Phalanger

I think MS is getting better these days. They released the .Net Framework source code (called ROTOR) under the same license (Shared Source). Though you can't use it commercially, it actually compiles on multiple platforms. Good for students and guys working on alternate implementations, though you cant lift code from it. They also started a new code sharing community called CodePlex.

Eventually they might open up a lot of platform code, maybe even Windows itself. I still remember BillG saying that way back in 2000, that they might someday. Among other things it will depend on the quality of source code, you really wouldn't want people to see all those //HACK-HACKs and //FIXME:BAD-BAD-WAAAH-WAAH code. The .Net codebase is awesome, so it was easier to open. (Not saying thats the only criteria).

Perhaps, with the new guys sitting on top, people like Ray Ozzie MS might change. Hopefully they "know" that openness is freedom, and freedom will last.

I also dislike the way that Microsoft uses its products to drag developers and systems integraters, kicking and flailing, on whatever path it's decided to follow. Want to get all old .Net v1 apps recompiled in .Net v2? You can't.

Check out the code, and compile using the new compilers or VS2005? Sure, you may have to code around the published breaking changes, but that's why it's a major version change. Or maybe you don't want to recompile - you just want to run against the new framework? Well, then, just target the new framework version - no source required. Of course, don't be surprised if one of the breaking changes bites you in the ass - that's why Side by Side execution is there. If you're having problems with it, work around it or file a bug.

Want to support PC's that don't have .Net v2 installed and still use VS2005? You can't.

Unless you use Microsoft's open/shared source MSBee, of course.

If Microsoft would just shut up with all the market-babble and open up their development process in ways that would allow people to directly contact developers, report and comment on bugs, and allow others to reliably support their products, things would be so much easier.

I don't think there's a formal system for directly contacting developers, but most of the higher profile development tools group maintain a team blog or have developers who blog on blogs.msdn.com, and of course there's always the Microsoft monitored newsgroups. There's also a legion of MVPs and Regional Directors, who - while not employed by Microsoft - often have knowledge and MS contacts way exceeding your own. These folks are usually very active in the community and are not hard to find.

As for reporting and commenting on bugs, that's what the Product Feedback Center is all about. And yes, Microsoft even comments on them. They tend to mark them as By Design or Won't Fix a little too often for my tastes, but that's their prerogative.

As for others "reliably support[ing] their products", I don't know what you think the legions of MCSEs and their like do all day - but I think it boils down to supporting Microsoft products.

And now that I've been informative and laid out all the information you need, I'd like to ask you how is it that you're able to so confidently assert these shortcomings of Microsoft when you apparently can't even use Google (or even MSN gets this one right) (try searching for ".NET breaking changes" and see what the first hit is - oh, looky - the breaking changes from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0) or even attempt to keep up? Is it the case that you are simply that ignorant of your own ignorance? Are you just a troll? Do you have such deep hated fear and loathing of Microsoft that it prevents you from being rational? Or do you have such a high opinion of yourself that you figure if you don't know about it, then it doesn't exist?

I don't think Microsoft can be blamed for your ignorance - there are plenty of other .NET developers who know about this stuff, and we're not doing anything magical. It's called keeping up to date, reading, and researching - the price you pay for being a technology focused professional

That's why Microsoft just released an open source website called CodePlex.