An open source license could help Microsoft's Axum incubation project gain traction versus Erlang or Scala Axum is a Microsoft DevLab project that Microsoft hopes will “validate a safe and productive parallel programming model for .Net.” Axum is an incubation project, and as such, the syntax, features, or runtime itself may change. Microsoft has no product commitments related to Axum at this time. The Axum team wants to solicit customer feedback, likely in the hope that Axum itself will become a first-class programming language for .Net or will influence a follow-on language.Does this sound like a great candidate for an open source project? It does to me. Especially since Axum is up against Erlang and Scala, two leading languages that address concurrency and are developed through open source projects.Surely Microsoft could have kept control of the Axum language and related intellectual property through a contributor agreement. Microsoft could use the LGPL, for example, to “protect” against competitor actions, and yet have the ability to relicense Axum under a commercial license. Even if Savio were to fork Axum, the strong likelihood is that Windows customers would use Axum over Savio’s fork. Of course, Axum requires a .Net runtime. I’m sure the smart folks at Microsoft could have figured out a way to enable community contributions without having to open up .Net to wholesale community edits. Maybe Project Mono could have played a role?Follow me on Twitter at: SavioRodrigues.p.s.: I should state: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.” Technology Industry