Funds it with $1 million

Sep 11, 2009 10:02 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft’s foray into open source territory has advanced to the next level, as the company founded the CodePlex open source foundation. With the mission to enable “the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities,” the CodePlex Foundation debuted on September 10th 2009, with the Redmond-based company providing initial financial backing no less than $1 million. Essentially, the CodePlex Foundation is designed to bridge commercial software companies with open source communities by focusing on collaborative projects.

"Before we dig into the details of the CodePlex Foundation, it is important to note that the Foundation is completely independent from Microsoft. The Foundation's mission to help the exchange of code and understanding between software companies and open source communities is really interesting to Microsoft. To help the Foundation fund its first year of operations, Microsoft is donating U.S. $1 million," noted Bill Staples, the General Manager for the Web Platform and Tools Team at Microsoft, a member of the interim CodePlex Foundation board.

In addition to Staples, other members of the CodePlex Foundation’s interim board of directors are Stephanie Boesch - Secretary & Treasurer, Microsoft, Miguel de Icaza from Novell, Britt Johnston - Product Unit Manager, Data and Modeling Group – Microsoft, and Shaun Walker from DotNetNuke. Leading the new foundation is Sam Ramji, who has taken on the role of interim President. Microsoft revealed that the CodePlex Foundation’s interim leadership would start searching for people to permanently occupy their positions. Over the next 100 days, the new foundation will be shaped and defined in all of its aspects, according to current plans.

"We need the community's involvement to make the CodePlex Foundation a success. We don't have all of the answers today. With today's soft launch, we hope to get critical input that will ensure the Foundation is a respected, neutral party that can enhance collaboration between participating companies, industry partners and open source communities. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be reaching out to many folks to get their feedback and to ask them to get involved with the Foundation," Staples said.

Microsoft is already making use of the CodePlex moniker for its repository of open source projects, and indicated that it regards the CodePlex Foundation as a an extension of the CodePlex brand. Specifically, the Redmond-based company indicated that the foundation is the next step in the evolution of CodePlex, however just as it is independent from Microsoft, the CodePlex Foundation is also independent from the CodePlex.com hosting website.