Hunter pushes CodePlex as a business-oriented foundation

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Paula Hunter will differentiate CodePlex from sites like Google Code and groups like the Linux Foundation by trying to bring enterprise IT shops into the open source mainstream.

Hunter was named the new executive director of the CodePlex Foundation late last week, and spoke to ZDNet Open Source.

The CodePlex Foundation is based in Seattle, but Hunter lives in New Hampshire and works in the Boston suburbs. That may prove an asset as Hunter works to distance the foundation from its roots as a Microsoft open source site.

“My responsibility will be to embrace the business community,” she said, adding she plans on hiring a technical director soon. She also plans to develop something like the old Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) user advisory board, covering a range of industries beyond software.

“One primary area we’re trying to focus is the commercial software development area, and certainly the east coast is not only a center for software companies but large enterprise IT shops,” she said.

Hunter is the foundation’s first employee. Even the permanent board of directors has yet to be named. This gives her enormous influence on the group’s direction. But she emphasized to ZDNet that the direction has already been set, and that her plan is to execute on it.

“It’s not necessary for one company to shoulder the burden of this effort. There are plenty of companies that can benefit. Over the next few weeks I’m going to create a program and set of benefits for those people we want to sign on board.”

The direction was described by Sam Ramji, a former Microsoft executive now with Sonoa Systems, when the new foundation was set up last year. That is, provide a way for Fortune 500 companies outside the software industry to make contributions, gain the benefits of open source, while maintaining some code control.

Andy Updegrove is pleased with the appointment, noting her work with United Linux and the OSDL, which was merged with the Free Standards Group to create the present Linux Foundation.

“Paula knows her way around the block,” he wrote, and most stories about the appointment emphasize she’s an open source “veteran.” This makes me feel old. Hunter got her degree from Bentley College in 1983, when I was five years into my own journalism career.

See Original entry in ZDnet here.