DotNetNuke co-founder joins Micorsoft's CodePlex project

DotNetNuke, the open source web content management project built on the .Net platform, announced this week that its co-founder and chief architect Shaun Walker will be joining the interim board of directors for the CodePlex project, an open source initiative sponsored by Microsoft. The CodePlex Foundation was founded and funded by Microsoft with 1 million dollars in seed money. Although Microsoft is behind the initiative, they claim that project will remain license and project agnostic.

Microsoft and open source are not often uttered in the same breath, but Walker believes Microsoft is on the right level with this project. "The goal of the CodePlex Foundation is to enable the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities," Walker said. He adds and that the project's goals are completely consistent with goals of his company. "This goal is 100% complementary to the goals of DotNetNuke Corporation, which results in great opportunities for collaboration between organizations."

Before we all sing "Kumbuya" however, it's worth noting that Microsoft is not held in the highest regard in the open source community. As I wrote recently on DaniWeb, "Walker's role with the new foundation makes sense at least on some level, but will it fly in the open source community, a place that has been known to be cold and unforgiving?" But Walker is convinced that the project will help foster a dialogue between software companies, such as Microsoft, that might have been reluctant to engage with the open source community in the past.

Whether this vision comes to fruition or not remains to be seen, but Walker at least, believes that it's worth chances no matter what skeptics might think.

For more information:
- see the DotNetNuke press release

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