A little while ago I noticed a post by Oleg Tkachenko entitled Microsoft licensed Mvp.Xml library where he wrote
On behalf of the Mvp.Xml project team our one and the only lawyer - XML MVP Daniel Cazzulino aka kzu has signed a license for Microsoft to use and distribute the Mvp.Xml library. That effectively means Microsoft can (and actually wants to) use and distribute XInclude.NET and the rest Mvp.Xml goodies in their products. Wow, I'm glad XML MVPs could come up with something so valuable than Microsoft decided to license it.
Mvp.Xml project is developed by Microsoft MVPs in XML technologies and XML Web Services worldwide. It is aimed at supplementing .NET framework functionality available through the System.Xml namespace and related namespaces such as System.Web.Services. Mvp.Xml library version 1.0 released at January 2005 includes Common, XInclude.NET and XPointer.NET modules.
As a matter of interest - Mvp.Xml is an open-source project hosted at SourceForge.
Since Oleg wrote this I've seen other Microsoft XML MVPs mention the event including Don Demsak and Daniel Cazzulino. I think this is very cool and something I feel somewhat proud of since I helped get the XML MVP program started.
A few years ago, as part of my duties as the program manager responsible for putting together a community outreach plan for the XML team I decided that we needed an MVP category for XML. I remember the first time I brought it up with the folks who run the Microsoft MVP program and they thought it was such a weird idea since there were already categories for languages like C# and VB but XML was just a config file format and didn't need enough significant expertise. I was persistent and pointed out that a developer could be a guru at XSLT, XPath, XSD, DOM, etc without necessarily being a C# or VB expert. Eventually they buckled and an MVP category for XML was created. Besides getting the XML Developer Center on MSDN launched, getting the XML MVP program started was probably my most significant achievement as part of my community outreach duties while on the XML team at Microsoft.
Now it is quite cool to see this community of developers contributing so much value to the .NET XML community that Microsoft has decided to license their technologies.
I definitely want to build a similar developer community around the stuff we are doing at MSN once we start shipping our APIs. I can't wait to get our next release out the door so I can start talking about stuff in more detail.