Microsoft has released a new website this week that I can only describe as the other half of GotDotNet. If you used to use GotDotNet, you know there were two reasons to go there: the third party projects that were hosted there, and the Microsoft Samples.

GotDotNet was replaced by CodePlex, and a lot of Microsoft samples are, in fact, showing up there. But the thing about sites like CodePlex and SourceForge is that they expect you to use all the services — source control, download mirroring, forums, wiki, etc. In fact, both CodePlex and SourceForge have “activity” metrics which include measurements of the amount of developer activity that happens in their source control.

Microsoft Code Gallery is for those “samples” projects and other projects that don’t need source control — If you were using GotDotNet or CodePlex or SourceForge just for the download mirroring, then you could consider using the CodeGallery. They provide download mirroring with your choice of software licenses, and even a small wiki and forum … it’s basically exactly the same as CodePlex, but without source control.

I’m not sure why the world needed such a thing separate from CodePlex. Wouldn’t they be better off just creating a special “we don’t need source control” option for CodePlex projects? I mean, maybe they were seeing a lot of projects on CodePlex that weren’t using the source-control and such — just using it as a dumping ground for downloads. (I know that happens a lot on SourceForge — they have TONS of projects which are there just for download mirroring). But I don’t see the need for a separate project, nor do I understand the desire to have it be on the MSDN domain.