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Is the CodePlex Foundation Truly Independent Now?
Glyn Moody writes "Microsoft created its CodePlex, 'an online collaborative software development portal,' four years ago, as the latest in a string of attempts to play nicely with open source. Well, maybe not: Microsoft saw the open source software projects it hosted there as reflecting 'the open community-building spirit of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative.' In September last year, it tried again, launching the CodePlex Foundation, 'a forum in which open source communities and the software development community can come together with the shared goal of increasing participation in open source community projects,' and not to be confused with CodePlex.com, 'a Microsoft owned and staffed forge that encourages the development of open source software based on Microsoft technology.' The only problem is that all the funding for the CodePlex Foundation still comes from Microsoft. But the new Technical Director of the CodePlex Foundation, Stephen Walli, thinks it can become truly independent of Microsoft, open to all companies to create open source software for any platform using only OSI-approved licenses. Will the CodePlex Foundation take its place alongside existing foundations addressing this sector, like Apache and Eclipse, but complementary to them? Or is it forever doomed to be ignored by the open source world because of its origins?"
Sourceforge's engine is closed source.
I asked.
You can't make "code submissions" to it.
Microsoft's unfriendliness to Open Source has very little to do with them releasing any, or hosting code repositories.
The unfriendliness is expressed in terms of vague threats using software patents, attempts to derail implementation in various places, suspicious licensing deals like with Novell and so on.
All that has to go for me to start changing my mind. Until that happens, I'm not touching CodePlex with a 10 foot pole, and consider it completely irrelevant at best, and some sort of trap at worst.
Uh, no 16021 projects. And this was with one click from the homepage - "Project Directory" - funny about how obvious links make sense.
>more interested on marketing and policies than in code
Really? From your 1 second glance at the homepage? Unless you have 99% vision loss, you are a troll - or illiterate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
FYI, apostraphes aren't just for quoting words for no apparent reason, they're also used in contractions.
I doubt it - MS still makes the majority of their profit on Windows and Office. Keeping devs tied to Windows keeps that lucrative stream going, regardless of whether those devs are writing OSS.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
From http://www.codeplex.org/About2/FAQ/Mission.aspx (emphasis mine):
The Foundation has no pre-suppositions about particular projects, platforms, or open source licenses.
Doesn't sound hostile to the GPL to me.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I had actually forgotten that codeplex even existed until seeing it mentioned here on Slashdot today. Basically, codeplex is a home for Windows zealots who kind of like the idea of open source and want to dabble in it but refuse to leave the comforting confines of their OS of choice. So now, they have somewhere to hang out. It serves MS's purposes as it gives them something to hopefully take a little of the wind out of the sails of cross-platform real open source development. Personally, I think it a bit absurd to build open source programs on top of proprietary software technology as alluded to in the summary.
tl;dr *yawn*
From the article:
"... Not to be confused with Codeplex.com"
I think we both have been looking to different sites. Sure, codeplex.com has lots of projects. But this article is not about it.
Also, FYI: I happen to have suffered eye surgery. As a result, my vision is better than average.
So could Google - but no one seems to be bitching about Google Code.
Google has been a great friend of open source. They have earned and continue to earn a great deal of trust and respect from the open source and free software community.
Compare to the current CEO of Microsoft and I think it will be clearer why Microsoft needs to do more.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
So are there NDAs required by any of the various CodePlex things? Or are there other equivalent "agreements" that have other euphemistic names? That would tell us a lot about their actual intentions.
I wouldn't be able to say anything about CodePlex Foundation, but then I don't know what you would do there in the first place.
As for CodePlex - no, you don't need any NDAs. It's really just your typical project hosting website, except that it's targeted at the audience that uses MS development technologies (though doesn't exclude other stuff).