Open Source and Lip Service

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ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn points out the facts that Jason Matusow's blog hasn't been updated since May 24 (a whole 20 days!!!) and Scoble's leaving of Microsoft , and therefore proof positive that Microsoft has no interest in the open source community:

"My view is that Microsoft was never going to give more than lip service to openness, so why bother? If all you're going to pay me is lip service, frankly, I'm happy to decline the honor. "

I suppose Dana doesn't know about Microsoft Open Source Software Lab, or their team blog Port 25? (It must be good Dana, it was updated less than 24 hours ago ;-)

What about Microsoft's Codeplex...?  That must have missed Dana radar too. What is it? Well, from the Codeplex wiki (and OSNews.com):

"CodePlex is an online software development environment for open and shared source developers to create, host and manage projects throughout the project lifecycle."

Here's Korby Parnell giving an update (a whole week ago) since the beta launch:

"As announced by project admin, Craig Boyd , the mighty SednaX project will soon be making the move from gotdotnet CodeGallery to CodePlex.com, both of which my team has developed and maintains as free, open, and inclusive project development venues and repositories for developers and aficionados of open and shared source software."

(SednaX is a Visual FoxPro project providing open source add-ons for Visual FoxPro 9.0).

It's in beta, and as Mary Jo Foley points out, will be out of beta when launched at the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in London in late June. And according to the article (that we didn't write) it is supporting a number of license types:

"Hilf described CodePlex as a "community development Web site" that is an outgrowth of Microsoft's shared-source effort.
"We are fostering .Net and community developers who are doing community stuff," Hilf said in an interview with Microsoft Watch. "We set out to create something using our best and latest software that would let folks use any license they want" to make their code available, including the GNU General Public License, OpenBSD and Microsoft's own shared-source licenses."

So Dana. You've been a professional journalist for 25 years. I'm sure, if you really wanted to, you could speak to a few people here and find out a little more about all the OS lip service we're paying at Microsoft (or lack of) before your next post :-)