Microsoft is posting code to its much-trumpeted CodePlex open-source projects site using licenses and conditions that go against the principles of open source.

The CodePlex Foundation is a non-profit designed to encourage and educate commercial software developers to start or improve their own open source projects. And, even though Microsoft is the first sponsor of the Foundation, all of the projects are "platform and technology agnostic," Hunter emphasized in a recent interview.

Open-source software veteran Paula Hunter has one of the more interesting jobs in the industry, as the executive director of the CodePlex Foundation, a non-profit, open-source organization that was established with Microsoft as its founding sponsor.

After nearly two months of life, Microsoft's open source CodePlex Foundation is now gearing up to accept projects, but it still has some work to do.

t seems we’ve arrived upon Microsoft open source. In the last couple of years, whenever there was discussion of Microsoft’s open source projects and efforts such as CodePlex or Port25, there was typically the standard open source response: it’s not OSI-approved; it’s not real open source.

Open source and proprietary software are different in a good way, says Paula Hunter, head of the Microsoft-backed Codeplex Foundation

The CodePlex Foundation has announced the arrival of several new board members, including Jim Jagielski, the Chief Open Source Officer of SpringSource. Jagielski, who was one of the original cofounders of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), brings a lot of credibility and leadership experience to the CodePlex Foundation.

Last week Microsoft unveiled (perhaps sooner than intended) its new CodePlex Foundation,with the mission of “enabling the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities.” Does it stand a chance of gaining any community participation?

Microsoft brings Codeplex and SourceForge closer together after some arrangements with SourceForge