Microsoft Launches 'CodePlex,' a New Code Repository Site

Move over, Googleplex. Here comes Microsoft CodePlex.

CodePlex is not the name for a new wing of the ever-expanding Microsoft campus headquarters. Instead, it is Microsoft's newest code-repository site, aimed especially at shared- and open-source programmers.

On May 15, Microsoft went live with the beta version of its CodePlex site. The site, which is coded in C# and is built on top of a hosted version of Microsoft Team Foundation Server platform, includes support for wiki-based team communiction, to RSS feed aggregation, to forums.

Microsoft's plan is to take the CodePlex site "more formally live" in late June or early July, said Bill Hilf, director of Microsoft's platform strategy.

Sources said Microsoft's current plan is to launch the final version of the site at the Open Source Business Conference in London in late June.

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.

CodePlex is not meant to be a replacement for existing code-repository sites, such as Microsoft's GotDotNet or SourceForge, Hilf said.

"We won't try to move existing projects over," Hilf continued. "Sine gave aggregated a fair-sized community and we don't want to disrupt that. We don't think need there needs to be one (code-repository) site only."

Among the projects currently hosted on the CodePlex beta site:

 

An "Atlas" control toolkit, which is a set of plug-in components for Microsoft's Atlas AJAX framework, which is currently in beta;

 

 

"Turtle," a command-line interface for Microsoft's recently introduced Team Foundation Server; and

 

 

IronPython, the .Net implementation of the Python programming language.

 

CodePlex hosting is free, as is registration for the site.