Version 1.0 of jQuery is now available under either an MIT or GPL open source license. Resig did not have an exact figure on how many people have been using jQuery, which has been available in a pre-release format for several months. But the jQuery home page receives about 3 million page views per month, Resig said.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is offering a Community Technology Preview'(CTP) of Sandcastle (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e82ea71d-da89-42ee-a715-696e3a4873b2&DisplayLang=en), which enables managed class library developers worldwide to develop documentation with a common look and feel that resembles MSDN (Microsoft Development Network) documents.

An August CTP was made available this week. Sandcastle produces accurate, MSDN-style comprehensive documentation, according to Microsoft.

Part of the Visual Studio software development kit, Sandcastle works with or without authored comments and supports generics and .Net Framework 2.0. Although primarily targeted at ISVs, corporate developers also could use Sandcastle.

Also in the development tools arena, Sun Microsystems on Thursday said it has launched its Sun Studio Express (http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/cc/index.jsp) program, which enables C, C++, and Fortran developers to preview features intended for future releases of Sun Studio. The company said it has had 50,000 downloads of the free Sun Studio 11 tool in six months.