Microsoft Opens Up CodePlex Site

Microsoft is undertaking a project that aims to spur community development around the platform, Microsoft Watch reported earlier this week. Called CodePlex, the site will host projects by parties that would be made available under a variety of licenses, including Microsoft Shared Source and the GPL, among others.

Currently 19 projects are hosted on the CodePlex site. These include a Commerce Starter Kit that allows developers to use ASP.NET 2.0 to access Paypal; IronPython, an implementation of the popular Python programming language for .Net; and Turtle, Open source client for Visual Studio Team System. "You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with your fellow developers around the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback," Microsoft says.