Microsoft signs agreement to contribute to Joomla open-source project

Microsoft has signed the contributor agreement for Joomla, one of the biggest PHP-based open-source applications.

Josh Holmes, a UX Architect Evangelist with Microsoft, has more about the arrangement on his blog:

"Obviously it means that Microsoft employees can contribute to Joomla!. That’s exciting all by itself as Joomla! is the second largest PHP application in the world. In fact, that’s already happened in conjunction with the signing as Ruslan Yakushev and Don Raman have already contributed code to add WinCache support to Joomla!"

Joomla is a content-management system (CMS) and a Model View Controller (MVC) framework that evolved from the Mambo CMS. Joomla is licensed under Version 2 or later of the GNU General Public License (GPL). According to the Joomla site, Joomla's customers include MTV Networks Quizilla, IHOP, Harvard University and Citibank.

In an April 27 post to the Joomla Community Portal site, the Joomla team noted that some of Microsoft's code is in the Joomla 1.6 trunk. About half the commentors on the Joomla site were upbeat about Microsoft's involvement in Joomla, noting that the Redmondians have been sponsoring many PHP events, as of late. But the other half were skeptical of Microsoft's interest and involvement in open-source in general, and Joomla, in particular.

Microsoft has been working on its own open-source CMS platform, codenamed "Orchard." Microsoft recently transferred responsibility for Orchard to the CodePlex Foundation, and a handful of Microsoft employees working on Orchard have been assigned full-time to the Foundation for three years. Microsoft also has its own paid CMS platform in SharePoint Server.