Microsoft & Sourceforge

jcannon — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:36:00 GMT

Over the past four years, we’ve been working with Sourceforge on a number of unique programs to help connect developers with the code and communities that interest them. In 2004, we started the Windows Installer XML (WiX) Toolkit project on Sourceforge, licensed under the Common Public License. WiX is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. In 2005, we started the open source ODF Converter project. Then, in 2007, we launched the ‘World of Choice’ destination to provide helpful connections to free community and software offerings available from Microsoft.

Developers have told us these interactions are important and that it’s important that we continue collaborating with open source communities. We understand that the language of that collaboration is code. As a result, I’m excited to share that this year, Microsoft is a Diamond sponsor of the Sourceforge Community Choice Awards (CCA), joining O’Reilly and the Linux Foundation in supporting the recognition of world-class open source developers and projects.

For the uninitiated, the CCAs are an annual appreciation of open source projects that allow any OSS project to be nominated and voted on by the Sourceforge community. This joint collaboration will result in two important additions to this year’s Community Choice Awards:

1. The CCAs are now open to open source projects that are hosted on Codeplex. This means that projects hosted on Codeplex, and licensed under the MS Public or Reciprocal License, are eligible for nomination, voting and recognition.

2. As a part of our sponsorship, we’ve also worked with Sourceforge to create a new category for ‘Best Project for Educators’: Whether you're working in grade school education, high school, or college, teaching is difficult. Open source can help! This award goes to the project that makes it easier to educate and share knowledge together.

This is an important program for Microsoft – we believe strongly in supporting developer choice and collaboration. Open source is all about choice and collaboration. I can’t think of a better venue to support and cheer the fantastic work that these individuals and communities do every day. Education is another important theme from Microsoft. Worldwide, access to knowledge is a serious social and economic issue. Technology can be a key to closing this gap. We want to recognize development work being done in this area.

So here’s how to get involved: If you’re a project contributor, maintainer, or user – visit http://sourceforge.net/community/cca08/ - Select ‘Nominate’ and get started recognizing your favorite OSS Projects. You can ‘Search’ for projects too – Sourceforge has developed a clever widget that returns results across forges. In the case below, I searched for ‘XNA’ and received multiple Codeplex results.

This summer, winners will be recognized at OSCON in Portland, OR. If you will be in town, you’re welcome to attend.

This is an exciting time to be a developer. Let the recognition begin.

Shared Source, CodePlex and Powertoys

admin — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:10:00 GMT

Sam Interviews Sara Ford, former Computer Science and Mathematics double major and Shotokan Black Belt, to discuss Power Toys, Shared Source and CodePlex.

Sara will be at OSCON with the Port 25 crew. If you are attending and interested in meeting Sara, look for us. We'll be the ones with the video camera, more on that later.

Video: Shared Source, CodePlex and Powertoys

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Related Links:
Sara Ford’s Power Toys as Shared Source @ Microsoft RSS Feed – join the conversation with a team learning how to do open / shared source at Microsoft.

Currently-released Power Toys for Visual Studio

MSBee
TFS Administration tool
Managed Stack Explorer
Best Practive Analyzer for ASP.NET (Alpha Release)
Power Toy Homepage – coming very soon!

Link to VRML Laser demo that Sara mentioned during the interview, but she is most proud of the Reflection and Refraction module.

Note from Michael (Port 25 Admin): Sam's shirt in this video is in no way an endorsement of post Sammy Hagar Van Halen. For the record we would sign the "Bring Back David Lee Roth Petition", if such a thing existed...

Video: Shared Source Development Contest

Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Codeplex, OSCON

Microsoft & Sourceforge

Shared Source, CodePlex and Powertoys