Microsoft woos open source developers with CodePlex

Microsoft, a champion of the open-source movement? Apparently so. The world's largest software developer has quietly launched CodePlex, a collaborative development community for programmers, coders and tinkerers of all stripes. It has a decidely SourceForge feel, describing itself as a place to "create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback". Already, 30 development teams have signed on to collaborate on projects such as developing a new RSS feed reader (which doesn't seem to be generating much interest as of yet) and a new version of something called Ascend.Net (one of the five most popular CodePlex projects in terms of users).

Microsoft says the purpose behind CodePlex is to open an established community where it can share some of its coveted source code with developers. The growing popularity of Linux and other open-source software applications, which have eaten into Windows sales over the years, has forced Microsoft to share more of its source code with third parties. Many of these were favoured customers and academics. CodePlex would be a substantial expansion of that programme, opening up ties to a crucial constituency – some of the best and brightest software developers who otherwise may have opted to take their ideas to the open-source community at SourceForge.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft said it will stop hosting projects of their own on SourceForge, some of which were up there for two years. And for those who bring their projects and ideas to CodePlex, Microsoft will treat the projects as part of the wider development community. In other words, no, Microsoft does not get rights over the created work, and won't be asking the developers to sign over a licence to Microsoft. Yep, that's the open-source philosophy. And it will now be operating under the Microsoft brand.