The CodePlex Foundation today accepted the Orchard project into the ASP.NET Open Source Gallery. The second project accepted by the gallery, Orchard was contributed by Microsoft, the Foundation's launch sponsor.

Orchard, an open source, community-focused project, includes an architecture and early-stage, reusable code components to help web application developers build applications on the ASP.NET platform. The initial focus of the Orchard project is to deliver a .NET-based, open source CMS platform that will speed the development of content-driven websites. Orchard's framework also will allow developers to provide functionality through extensions and themes.

"The Orchard project is in its early stages," said Sam Ramji, interim President, CodePlex Foundation. "We're very excited to accept it into the Foundation's process because the open source community will be able to play a significant role in shaping the direction in which the Orchard project evolves."

The Orchard project is licensed under the OSI-approved New BSD license. Miguel de Icaza, a member of the CodePlex Foundation's interim Board of Directors, will serve as project mentor, with Bradley Millington taking the role of project lead. Project sponsor Microsoft has made a three-year resource commitment to Orchard, including a full-time development team. The Orchard project is currently hosted on CodePlex.com. For more information, visit the project page at http://www.orchardproject.net.