Sam Ramji, Microsoft's Senior Director of Platform Strategy, delivered the keynote address at the 10th annual Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, entitled “Participation in a World of Choice.”
Participants at the event were asked to help explore opportunities for greater participation in the design, development, and deployment of software in the modern IT environment.
In 1998, Microsoft and MIT collaborated to explore the ways technology could improve education and campus life for university students. Their iCampus project produced a hive of creative work that demonstrated the virtues of giving students a measure of control over their own education. Read the article: PDF (388 KB) | XPS (360 KB).
Read how Microsoft developed the Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) to help organizations address the specific problems of porting UNIX- based applications to Windows. Read the article: PDF (272 KB) | XPS (292 KB).
In 1999, Microsoft employee Rob Mensching began to develop Windows Installer XML (WiX). A pioneering open source project for Microsoft, WiX is now used widely by development teams in various industries to build installations. Read the article: PDF (322 KB) | XPS (362 KB).
To foster a community-oriented approach to developing and delivering software, Microsoft employees Jim Newkirk and Sandy Khaund created CodePlex. The site's features include wiki pages, source control, issue tracking, discussion forums, content management, and a site release every three weeks. Read the article: PDF (341 KB) | XPS (303 KB)
By sharing source code openly and at no charge at its CodePlex project hosting Web site, Microsoft hopes to help speed the worldwide AIDS-research community toward a vaccine. Read the article: PDF (293 KB) | XPS (275 KB)
Learn how MindTouch has created Deki Wiki, the first cross-platform open source wiki with application logic written entirely in the Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Read about the Freudenberg Group's use of Aras Innovator to collaborate on deliverables, track program costs, manage project risks, and consolidate project-related information.
Community participation in the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit development process instigates rethinking of the Microsoft traditional licensing and support structures.
Product manager exchanges, shared meetings, and marketing support helped ensure success in engineering SugarCRM's open-source software to run on the Windows Server operating system.
