The Credibility Issues of MS's CodePlex Foundation

alphadogg writes 'Microsoft's new CodePlex Foundation has serious flaws to correct if it wants to become a credible force in the open source industry, and attract a diverse collection of developers and participants, according to an expert in forming consortia and foundations. Andy Updegrove, a lawyer and founder of ConsortiumInfo.org, says Microsoft has created with CodePlex a rigid foundation that has almost no wiggle room and a poorly crafted governance structure that concentrates authority at the top and leaves little power to others who might join the foundation.' Here is Andy's detailed analysis of CodePlex's structure: "Over the past 22 years, I've helped structure scores of open, consensus based consortia and foundations, and represented over 100 in all... In this blog entry, I'll show where I think the legal and governance structure of CodePlex has wandered off the open path, and offer specific recommendations for how the structure could be changed to give people (other than Microsoft business partners) confidence that CodePlex will be an organization worth joining."

Comments

Hrmm

[acehole]

Needs more lawyer.

Re:Hrmm

[tibman]

Microsoft's promise not to sue: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx

The promise covers several specifications, most importantly this:
C# Language Specification - Ecma-334, 4th Edition and ISO/IEC 23270:2006
Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) - Ecma-335, 4th Edition and ISO/IEC 23271:2006

I won't use Mono for that reason alone.
Guess what? You can use Mono now. yay!

I personally, don't care who wrote what and why. It works and it's available for use. To not use code because you think the programmer is immoral? That's awfully pious.

and attract a diverse collection of developers

[miknix]

Because I'm sure my Linux on [insert device here] port will look just fine on CodePlex.

Re:Great. Now let's compare this

[SgtChaireBourne]

The "crime", if you want to call it that, is that after years of scuzzball tactics, FUD, lawsuits, smears, and namecalling ("linux is a cancer" ... remember that?), a true blue, died-in-the-wool authoritarian software vendor is posing as a "look-at-me-I'm-hip-now" open source software vendor, likely while trying to find yet another way to screw the real open source community. Judging by the way they structured their "open source" (to use the term veeeerrryy loosely) initiative, they seem to think that open source means "will do what we tell them for free", proving that they still don't get it.

RICO should cover most of M$ business models, past and present.

While you're at it, add up the total damage from the Windows malware per quarter. It's got the late Osama Bin Laden beat, hands down. There may well be a business case for air strikes against Redmond. Obviously that would be preceded by naval bombardment and followed by after-action mop up by ground units.