As you certainly know, CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web site. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback. Codeplex hosts Open Source project written on several platforms (not only Microsoft).
Codeplex is very clear about Microsoft's role (here): Microsoft does not control, review, revise, endorse or distribute the third party projects on this site. Microsoft is hosting the CodePlex site solely as a web storage site as a service to the developer community.
A very active community:
On 9/1/07, there were 2177 projects posted on Codeplex.
eWeek has published a good article on 8/23 about the 25 most active Open Source projects at CodePlex - something many entrepreneurs and startups may not be interested in. The highlighted projects include the Ajax control toolkits, a mapping engine and SQL Server product samples.
Windows Live Quick Applications
Windows Live Quick Applications Beta is a project published on Codeplex. This project contains a few out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today. These applications are well commented and can easily be customized.
Codeplex now supports Subversion
Since 6/18/07, Codeplex has been offering support for TortoiseSVN as a source control client with CodePlex. It was the number one new feature request from Codeplex users. I am glad that the Codeplex team has been listening to its users to offer them the ability to use the source control tools of their choice with the most flexibility possible.
The ways it works is that TortoiseSVN creates a “bridge” that emulates a Subversion server and converts the requests from TortoiseSVN into calls to Team Foundation Server. This approach offers the following benefits:
- Users can choose to use either TortoiseSVN, the CodePlex Client, Teamprise Explorer, or Visual Studio Team Explorer with any project
- All existing and new projects will immediately support using TortoiseSVN as a source control client
