A young maker of Web-based project management software is jumping headfirst into the open-source world as a way to woo users from the dominant, but possibly vulnerable, Microsoft Project.

Microsoft's Web Sandbox Live Labs project is now available under an open source license. Microsoft chose the Apache 2.0 license for the project, but pointed out that the project will not become an Apache project, although the vendor has been a member of the Apache Software Foundation since July 2008.

At the Linux Collaboration Summit, Microsoft platform strategist Sam Ramji faced some tough questions during a panel about operating systems. He argued that Microsoft doesn't oppose open source software and that collaboration with the open source software community represents an opportunity for Microsoft.

Free and Open Source Project Management Software: A project management software is a program that can help apply knowledge, techniques, skills, and tools for planning and controlling resources, costs and schedules to meet the requirements of a particular project. It includes integrated functions such as calendars, charts, budget management, scheduling, and quality management and documentation.

Open source application OpenProj, a Microsoft Project replacement, has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, says Marc O'Brien, CEO of OpenProj's sponsoring company Projity.

One of the difficulties open source software faces is in implementing support — where it is even possible to do so — for the wide variety of codecs, formats, and other proprietary technologies that users have come to rely on. One such technology is Microsoft's Silverlight framework, which until early this year, was a no-go for Linux users.

According to an old saying, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. That, however, does not seem to apply in the proprietary software business, because as we have seen over the years, whenever a proprietary software vendor falls on tough financial times, it closes shop and releases its products under an open source license.

o3magazine.com has published an Introduction to Open Source that takes a unique approach at explaining Open Source to the general public and business community. It explains how Open Source projects begin and the motivation and benefits behind taking your project the FOSS route.

Microsoft made waves this week with their GPLv2 contribution of virtualization code. On the other side of the coin, Microsoft continues to take issue with open source vendors over the issue of patents. One vendor that has called on Microsoft to be more open is Red Hat. In a blog post, Red Hat's legal team praised Microsoft's code contribution while asking Microsoft to change its stance on patents.