Microsoft’s own SourceForge-like repository of open source projects, CodePlex, celebrated its third anniversary recently. According to Sara Ford, CodePlex program manager, the site is accepted and welcomed among the fans of open source and Linux software.

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.

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.

A look at how Microsoft and its former employees/current partners have been subverting the “Open Source” label while redefining what it actually means

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.

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.

Using examples from the past week alone, we show and we explain in simple terms how Microsoft is taking over “Open Source” using former employees, existing partners, Novell staff, and naïve/careless people who allow this to happen

One point was made to me repeatedly while covering the HIMSS show for ZDNet Healthcare this week. All this “good Microsoft” stuff about supporting open source, abut placing code on Codeplex, and about keeping open source projects “in the loop” regarding format changes, is no head fake.

Instead of ignoring open source conferences, Microsoft continues to invade them. The latest example: John Frederiksen (pictured), general manager of Microsoft’s Response Point business, is scheduled to speak at Digium AsteriskWorld on February 3. Why is Microsoft paying such close attention to an event for open source IP PBX advocates? The answer is obvious.