MVC Contrib, a community project led by Eric Hexter and Jeffrey Palermo of Headspring, has been contributed to the CodePlex Foundation's ASP.NET Open Source Gallery, it was announced today. Designed to add functionality and ease-of-use to Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC Framework, MVC Contrib is useful for developers looking to develop and test UI elements on top of the ASP.NET MVC framework.

MVC Contrib is the first project donated to the CodePlex Foundation by an independent group of developers backed by an independent software development company. Headspring, founded in 2001, is a custom software development and consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. Headspring is a Microsoft Gold Partner that specializes in delivering outsourced custom software and consulting.

"In accepting the MVC Contrib project, the CodePlex Foundation proves the value of its legal and licensing innovations, in particular the code contribution and assignment agreement," said Paula Hunter, Executive Director, CodePlex Foundation. "Our legal documents and processes reduce the risk and complexity for corporations that want to contribute open source projects to the larger community. The Foundation Is acting as a conduit between contributors, companies and the open source community, solving the business issues of participating in open source."

"We believe in the power of open source, and regularly share our code with other developers," said Eric Hexter, Director of Open Source Software Initiatives, Headspring. "By contributing the MVC Contrib project to the CodePlex Foundation, we are stepping up to help bridge the gap between corporations and the open source community. This contribution serves as a great proof point of how corporate developers and community projects can work together in open source to their mutual benefit."

For more information about the MVC Contrib project, visit www.MvcContrib.org or www.codeplex.com.