Do you like Microsoft’s Channel 8, 9, 10, TechNet Edge and Mix Online sites? Did you know the source for those sites is available? Yep, you too, with a little work, can could have your own Channel XYZ like site…

CodePlex - EvNet Community Platform

“Project Description

Forum and blogging software that is used to run http://on10.net, http://channel8.msdn.com, http://edge.technet.com and more. This project also contains a variety of tools and source that is used on the sites and in the day-to-day content production and site maintenance.

History

The EvNet development team is responsible for designing, building and maintaining a variety of Microsoft community sites, including Channel 9, Channel 10, Channel 8, Mix Online and TechNet Edge. For those sites, we created a forum and blogging system that we call "EvNet" and that was first used when we launched Channel 10.

…”

That’s officially cool and I hope it keeps up (both this project being refreshed/updated as well as other like projects).

I may be naive, but I feel if you’re not going to monetize it, then release it. If it’s not a core part of your business, not core IP, then release it. Free, and if at all possible, as source available (and/or OSS).

Anyway, the source is a 20MB zip, 35MB on disk unzipped. Here’s a few screenshots of the stuff in the latest source download….

There are external references (some free, like FreeTextBox and some not, like Xceed), so this site doesn’t run right from the unzip. Still with a little work you just might be able to make a “Channel You” as Kent put it. Starting here sure might make it easier than starting from scratch…

(via This Week on Channel 9 - This Week on C9: Brian Keller returns, Photosynth, Olympics, EvNet source code, and more –> Kent - Channel you)

 

Update #1 8/23/2008 @ 9:10AM PDT:

Please note that the source is currently the “old/classic” Channel 9 site. The team IS working on getting the latest version uploaded though. When that happens I’ll let you know…