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Thanks to a Slashdotting, the open source world has been abuzz about Microsoft’s new Codeplex site. It seems like Microsoft is getting into the OSS hosting game with Google and Canonical, right? Well, wrong. Codeplex is a good example of how Microsoft’s rabid lawyers and paranoid management can often ruin their best efforts. The headline is cool, and seems just like code.google.com, Sourceforge or Launchpad: “Enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities”. Hmmm. Wait a minute. What’s that “software companies” doing there? “CodePlex.com launched in June of 2006 out of a need for a project hosting site that operated in a way that other forges didn’t – with features and structures that appealed to commercial software developers. The next chapter in solving for this challenge is the CodePlex Foundation (Codeplex.org). The Foundation is solving similar challenges; ultimately aiming to bring open source and commercial software developers together in a place where they can collaborate.” Huh? Open source programmers are non-commercial? We’re clergy maybe, or communists? Does Microsoft think that Monty, Linus, and Larry work for free? Apparently they do. Either that, or “commercial” is a euphemism for “proprietary”. That’s even more troubling. It’s also a 501(c)6, which means that it’s a company-controlled trade association, not a charitable non-profit. Digging a little deeper into things, you see that the board of directors consists of: 4 Microsoft people, Miguel (who thinks Microsoft can do no wrong), and Shawn, who ported a PHP project to the Microsoft platform. So, pretty much a 100% Microsoft board. But that’s just the launch board, right? Well, that’s not the only problem. Take a look at the draft contributor agreement: “You grant Foundation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable license in the Submission to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute the Submission and such derivative works, and to sublicense those rights to third parties.” Let me re-interpret that for the non-laywers in the audience: “You grant Codeplex the right to give, for free, forever, under any license they please, your work to Microsoft and its partner corporations.” Nice try, guys. I suspect that Codeplex started when someone, probably Ramji, wanted to build a real community hosting site for OSS projects built on Microsoft platforms. But some enterprising laywer or executive at Microsoft got ahold of the idea and decided to turn it into a big fat trap for OSS developers. Given this, I believe the current rumor that Ramji is leaving Microsoft; if I were him, I would too.