OStatic

Popfly, a platform developed by Microsoft to help people create and share games with their friends, was shut down this week, according to a blog post on the project's Web site. It's not a total loss to the gaming community, however, since Microsoft decided to open source the code and host it on CodePlex for anyone who still wants to tinker with the game engine.

Popfly team member John Montgomery writes, Unfortunately, on August 24, 2009 the Popfly service will be discontinued and all sites, references, and resources will be taken down. At that time, your access to your Popfly account, including any games and mashups that you have created, will be discontinued. However, Microsoft is still very much dedicated to helping you express your creativity and pursuing a path to software development and offers multiple products to help along the way.

Black Duck, a company that services managed and secure implementations of open source software, announced a collaborative agreement with Microsoft that automates the process of adding open source projects from Microsoft's CodePlex repository into Black Duck's KnowledgeBase. CodePlex projects will also be searchable via the Koders.com open source search engine.

The partnership is significant because CodePlex houses 9,000 projects -- mainly for Windows and .NET developement -- with more than 100 new projects added every week. Since CodePlex accepts any technology projects, however, those with open source elements will now be accessible to developers in the FOSS community.

Proving the old adage if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, Microsoft has hired another open source expert whose primary responsibility will be to work on consumer, enterprise and government identity problems. Dick Hardt, founder and CEO of Sxipper, Inc., will stay on as Chair of the identity management company, and take on the title of Partner Architect at Microsoft.

When we first told you about the Open Source Census back in April, there were already a number of sponsors, with more expected to sign on in the future. Well, today, another sponsor was announced and the name may surprise you -- or maybe not. Microsoft. As expected, some open source supporters are in a twist over the news, while others are waxing philosophical.