Ask Sam Ramji About the CodePlex Foundation 77
This week the Codeplex Foundation announced its first project, the ASP.NET Ajax Library Project, as part of its first sponsored gallery, the ASP.NET Gallery. The CodePlex Foundation is now two months old, and Foundation President Sam Ramji has agreed to answer questions about the Foundation, its first project, and overall progress to date. Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.
Don't be ridiculous... (Score:2)
That is Sam RAIMI.
This is that hobbit guy that went with Frodo to Mount Doom to chuck that ring into the lava pits.
Re:A gallery... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the CodePlex Foundation has some sort of distinction between a gallery and a repository. I spoke for 30 minutes with Ramji a few weeks back, and yet I still have absolutely no idea what those differences are. He said that these galleries weren't about code, but rather about the ways corporations contribute code into them.
So, here's the first question: What is the difference between a Gallery and a Repository?
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maybe the appropriate question is, why should this answer bs eo complicated?
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Microsoft isn't used to dealing with open source, so you should expect a bit of clumsiness.
Everyone stumbles a bit when they first learn to walk.
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Microsoft isn't used to dealing with open source because they still aren't. They're still trying to get rid of it for a reason beyond me, especially considering that embracing it would guarantee far more sales. It's like the RIAA's sue it into oblivion thing, even though they'd make more sales with the new stuff if they even bothered considering it.
This is the biggest crux of MS I can never understand: they have amazing resources, tons of seriously talented developers, and they could get the whole software
Conspiracy theories and where are you guys headed? (Score:1, Insightful)
What do you say to the inevitable flood of "advocates" who claim Microsoft is doing this sort of thing to subvert FOSS?
Bonus points: Do you see Microsoft headed in the same general direction as Google and IBM where the core products and IP are held close to the chest while some of the more peripheral stuff (not key to revenue) is released under open licenses? Recent news like the open sourcing of one of the versions of the .NET framework make it seem that way.
Double bonus points: Do you see Microsoft ever r
Your take on bad engineerinrg? (Score:2, Flamebait)
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You might want to lift up a comment that was posted anonymously. There's a lot that gets posted, anonymously. Some of it good, but almost none of it breaks the 1+ threshold because of starting at 0 and for other reasons.
The bad engineering is a legitimate question. Bill Gates and his helpers have made computers synonymous with unreliable. Sam looks like he is working to bring that to Open Source.
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Non-Microsoft technologies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will priority be given to those using Microsoft tools, or can anyone play?
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From the FAQ:
"Q: What kinds of open source projects will the Foundation focus on?
The Foundation has no pre-suppositions about particular projects, platforms, or open source licenses . "
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C'mon, tell us what you really think.
Question: (Score:5, Funny)
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"Your soul is mine."
AOLer (Score:2, Funny)
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Bingo! [wikipedia.org]
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I think you may be referring to their trademark-pending FaceTweet technology...
SourceForge.net (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not contribute to SourceForge.net instead of unnecessarly duplicating it?
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Why not contribute to SourceForge.net instead of unnecessarly duplicating it?
That's because SourceForget.net is not pure .NET!
Re:SourceForge.net (Score:4, Insightful)
Ugh, 'cuz sourceforge sucks balls? Shitty layout. Slow as hell. Seriously, I welcome a decent alternative to SourceForge (not that this is necessarily it).
Re:SourceForge.net (Score:4, Insightful)
Or they feel they can do a better job and see no point in wasting time trying to fix Sourceforge, which has been on a steadily decline since it first hit the OSS scene?
Seriously, SF has plenty of resources behind it... the fact that it sucks (IMHO) suggests there's something systemic going on there, and if I were MS, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near it.
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Because that's what big companies do [google.com].
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I realized too late that Project Hosting on Google Code [google.com] makes a much better link.
Re:SourceForge.net (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever tried to use Sourceforge? It's slow, ugly, constantly gives vague errors, image uploads constantly fail, terrible UI, forgets which page you were on before logging in, awful bug tracking with insultingly-named fields (canned response!)...
A better question is, "why would any project actually interested in user feedback use Sourceforge?"
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In fact, linux should just go away and help contribute to Unix. Then they can call it:
Unix: The Real Linux.
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Assuming you're comparing CodePlex the website (which isn't the same thing as CodePlex the foundation) to SourceForge, then I'd imagine one reason is that CodePlex uses TFS for source control and related stuff. Aside from being a showcase, some people might actually prefer that to SourceForge offerings, especially when they code to MS stack already, and use non-Express Visual Studio edition (which has decent TFS integration).
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Because each parent company answers to a different set of investors?
"IP needs"? (Score:4, Insightful)
From your FAQ:
We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property needs of commercial software companies in mind.
This seems to imply that there are existing foundations that do so without those licensing and IP needs. Regardless, what do you see as the role of a foundation like yours in addressing the needs of commercial software companies?
repo (Score:2)
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they call that a "Feature".
Question (Score:1)
Microsoft Front (Score:5, Insightful)
The about page [codeplex.org] says "Our Board of Directors is an interim board" and that they will pick the new board but that's no too encouraging given who's doing the picking. CodePlex seems like Microsoft trying to create a community.
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...or leverage their position to entice people wishing to be on the committee.
I mean look at it like this:
"Hi, I'm on the board of this source management software site and I also happen to work at Microsoft. If you promise to drop all development for ____ platform (or create Microsoft compliant hardware), I'll ensure you are voted into a chair of this advisory committee, then you can encourage the community to write applications that work with your systems and our systems! It's a win-win situation, you se
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"Half the Board of Directors, and half of the Advisory Board are from Microsoft. Why should we think that this anything but a Microsoft front?"
Because if it were a "front" you wouldn't have known that Microsoft was involved.
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Nah, it is the usual MS bumbling propaganda ploy, recall how opaque the MSOOXML vote came about?
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What the heck? You mean they're somehow pretending to NOT be a Microsoft front?
I've gone to CodePlex several times for various curiosities, such as a graphics engine [codeplex.com] or neato research oriented OS [codeplex.com]. Every time I've gone to CodePlex I've only seen Microsoft Research spinouts or code built for Microsoft stacks.
I thought it was just Microsoft's "community" site from the get go - never knew they were trying to avoid that branding.
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Yes, they're trying to hide the Microsoft link - basically this is like mono all over again, just renamed and changed. Something patent encumbered and not at all open source friendly in spirit or in name.
Development? (Score:2, Funny)
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ASP.NET AJAX library size (Score:1, Redundant)
Jumping through hoops to get things done (Score:2)
I recently had to deal with Codeplex in order to track down a bug on code hosted therein that we were using at my workplace. This is fine, I am quite happy to work with free projects in order to track down bugs. Unfortunately, I got the impression that Codeplex doesn't "get" what free collaboration is about.
For instance, it has a clickthrough for GPL and other free licenses. While harmless, it is annoying and shows that Microsoft doesn't "get" it. I also had issues doing an svn checkout of the code, sinc
Codeplex - MS or community? (Score:1)
Codeplex claims to be an "open source project community". So why no GPLv3? If fact, why was GPLv3 actually *removed*? And how is this in the interests of the "community" of which you claim to represent?