When signing up to build a project in a Workspace, users will be offered a choice of licenses for the code they develop.
"Although any license can be submitted, GotDotNet provides two sample licenses that can be used for reference (one allows commercial derivative products, the other is designed for use in private Workspaces)," according to the Workspaces FAQ.
Whether Microsoft will sanction developers who want to use the GNU General Public License, BSD or other hybrid open-source license in Workspaces remains to be seen.
Other features on tap for Workspaces 1.0:
Message boards for community discussion and project-specific news will be available as RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds;
Activity ranking;
Automatic hyperlink highlighting;
A new-and-improved installation procedure. Testers (including some of Microsoft's own employees) have been complaining about earlier versions of Workspaces being tough to access.
Microsoft is hardly alone in sticking its toe in the collaborative-development waters. SourceForge, Groove Networks, CollabNet and others have been pioneering projects in this space for years. Indeed, a number of open-source .Net projects are currently hosted on SourceForge.
Earlier this month, CollabNet announced a deal with Sun Microsystems to create a Java-specific online community, Java.Net, where testers can host projects and blog about them to their hearts' content. And IBM's been hinting that it sees collaborative-development environmentswhich integrate desktop integrated development environments (IDEs) with the greater online community and toolsas the next big thing.
