SharePoint and Open Source

When running SharePoint workshops, one question inevitably crops up:

¨What doesn't come out of the box?¨

The length of the answer depends on the circumstances but, when talking about optional extras, it seems that plenty of people don't know about Codeplex. Codeplex is Microsoft's Open Source Projects hosting site, where solutions are posted that typically provide enhancements to products at no extra cost. And SharePoint has a few friends there.

Go check out Codeplex and do a search on SharePoint if you are curious about the types of extras available. Here are 5 for starters:

Solution	Description
Faceted Search	Enables tags to be used to classify content and present grouped results
SharePoint Migration Framework	Written by Kimmo Forss. Enough said. Works with old versions of SharePoint, File Shares, Lotus QuickPlace, eRooms
SharePoint Learning Kit	SCORM 2004 certified eLearning delivery and tracking application
SharePoint Forums	Provides a more advanced interface for hosting forums, compared to the default 'Discussions' list
MSIT Reporting Framework	What MSIT (MIcrosoft's Internal IT Support) uses to review SharePoint operations stats

Projects listed on CodePlex but not yet released include: Community Kit (for building community-driven portals) and Accessibility Kit (web site templates that follow W3C Web Content Accessibilty Guidelines 1.0).

Filed under: SharePoint: Add-ons

Technorati tags: SharePoint 2007; MOSS 2007