Microsoft CodePlex Open Source Repository Closing, Devs Urged To Embrace Github
Say goodbye to CodePlex. Microsoft just recently announced that it will be shutting down CodePlex, the eleven year-old open-source project hosting website. Microsoft has disabled the ability to create new projects and will officially shut the website down on December 15th, 2017.
CodePlex was initially launched in 2006 in order to share development of open-source software. The website included a number of projects, but was best known for its activities around the .NET framework. The site had manage to accumulate tens of thousands of projects.
Why are we bidding adieu to CodePlex? Microsoft is choosing to hitch its wagon to Github. According to Microsoft Corporation Vice President Brian Harry, “Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of amazing options come and go but at this point, GitHub is the de facto place for open source sharing and most open source projects have migrated there.”
Thanks to the popularity of Github, CodePlex has seen fewer contributors over the years. Harry noted, “...less than 350 projects saw a source code commit in the last 30 days.” To top it off, CodePlex witnessed a spam “epidemic” in 2015 where spammers attempted to use the site for a number of illegal purposes.
Microsoft has worked over the years to migrate over to Github, with the company investing in Visual Studio Team Services for proprietary projects and chosing to share projects on Github. Microsoft currently has 16,000 contributors on Github, the largest presence on the site.
What can CodePlex users expect over the next few months? First, as of yesterday, users will no longer be able to create new projects. In October, CodePlex will switch over to a read-only format. Users will still be able to download their archive in transferable file formats. Microsoft and Github are also providing migration tools to help bring CodePlex source code, license, and documentation over to Github. CodePlex will completely shut down on December 15th.
CodePlex was initially launched in 2006 in order to share development of open-source software. The website included a number of projects, but was best known for its activities around the .NET framework. The site had manage to accumulate tens of thousands of projects.
Why are we bidding adieu to CodePlex? Microsoft is choosing to hitch its wagon to Github. According to Microsoft Corporation Vice President Brian Harry, “Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of amazing options come and go but at this point, GitHub is the de facto place for open source sharing and most open source projects have migrated there.”
Thanks to the popularity of Github, CodePlex has seen fewer contributors over the years. Harry noted, “...less than 350 projects saw a source code commit in the last 30 days.” To top it off, CodePlex witnessed a spam “epidemic” in 2015 where spammers attempted to use the site for a number of illegal purposes.
Microsoft has worked over the years to migrate over to Github, with the company investing in Visual Studio Team Services for proprietary projects and chosing to share projects on Github. Microsoft currently has 16,000 contributors on Github, the largest presence on the site.
What can CodePlex users expect over the next few months? First, as of yesterday, users will no longer be able to create new projects. In October, CodePlex will switch over to a read-only format. Users will still be able to download their archive in transferable file formats. Microsoft and Github are also providing migration tools to help bring CodePlex source code, license, and documentation over to Github. CodePlex will completely shut down on December 15th.
