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Updates on OpenLogic's New Wazi Site, and Microsoft's CodePlex

Interesting news is rolling in about two sites that aggregate open source information and resources: OpenLogic's Wazi, and Microsoft's CodePlex. Wazi is the Swahili word for open, and is a new effort from OpenLogic, which provides enterprise open source solutions, to provide original content on topics such as how open source packages can efficiently work together. Meanwhile, Microsoft's open source chief Sam Ramji recently told The Register that its CodePlex site could be revised by year's end, after charges that the site listed projects with licenses that go against open source principles.

Like blogs and many other sites that aggregate content on open source, OpenLogic's Wazi depends on community contributions, so it will stand or fall on the quality of the content. So far, though, there is good content to be found there. For example, here is a good piece on evaluating open source licenses, a thoroughly detailed item on OSS enterprise reporting tools, and a good tutorial on customizing the Firefox 3 installer.

The content on Wazi appears not to run very deep yet--in terms of the number of contributions--but the site is new. Hopefully, it will become a good repository for tutorials and open source thought pieces.

Meanwhile, Microsoft drew sharp criticism in October over charges that the company was posting code to its CodePlex open source hosting site using licenses not compatible with the terms of the Open-Source Initiative (OSI). However, Microsoft's Sam Ramji has told The Register that Microsoft may revise CodePlex by year-end, and may segregate the site into a series of sub-sites, according to the license types of projects listed.

This would be a good move for Microsoft and CodePlex, and Sam Ramji has the respect of many people in the open source community. He entered Microsoft this year, and is charged with overseeing Microsoft's changing stance toward open source. You can find out more about his goals for doing so in our interview with him.

• Microsoft
• openlogic
• Wazi
• CodePlex

by Roy Schestowitz on Nov. 12, 2008

Microsoft has already "diluted' the term open source (so it 'win' either way). If people care about freedom of their code, they should abandon the term open source.

"That would be because we believe in Free Software and doing the right thing (a practice you appear to have given up on). Maybe it is time the term 'open source' also did the decent thing and died out with you."

--Alan Cox to Eric Raymond

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