Re: Must Run On Linux

I agree this is clearly not a resonable situation. But, Like you pointed out, there are projects in the works to port.net to Linux and even though I like my windows I would be pretty Jazzed to see DNN on Linux. Mainly because I think it would blow there socks off!!!

Re: GNU's Not UNIX...Well, it's pretty darn close...

Shaun,
I also agree that it is unfair criticism. I recently put together a presentation about .NET on Linux and Linux on Windows for that matter: http://apps.ultravioletconsulting.com/OpenSourceDotNet/OpenSourceDotNet.ppt

If the people that criticize Windows-based open source projects knew the full history of GNU they would understand that GNU is meant to mimic exactly proprietary UNIX! The GNU project began with this goal and proceded initially to create the libraries and runtimes to clone UNIX tools, without the underlying kernel. The Linux kernel provided a nice "home" for the GNU tools, but the GNU tools are available on Win32 as well under Cygwin or MinGW. For that matter GIMP and Mono are available under Win32. I think these people should stop disrespecting Windows-based OSS and instead work to implement support for them under Linux or other systems, much like what is happening with Mono.

Some might say DNN is a "clone" of PhpNuke or something like that. Maybe to some end-users this may look like the case. But, for those of us who are developers, we see it differently. With DNN, we have a rich set of classes and libraries, a well-factored design with strong-typing and an exhibitor of many best practices and design patterns. It is like a text-book for us to learn from and it gives us experience to help us become enterprise class developers. On the other hand, while the many PHP tools may serve well to get a job done, working with PHP, in my opinion, is not a very satisfying thing deep down. We know that enterprise level APIs or libraries will not be created in typeless languages. We know that these systems have a limited potential for growth and sophistication on their own. This is not because they are not well designed or well-thought out. It is because they are implemented in scripting languages and without compiled resources or extensions, a scripting language cannot enjoy the same benefits of something like the JRE or CLR. The same is not true for DNN because it is built on top of the CLR.

DNN is already running on Linux: http://dev.mainsoft.com/. It looks like Mainsoft is getting closer to Mono as well....

Josh

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Thanks for sharing Shaun, it always good to have the OSD principles ready when I need them.
I think debates concerning "what is open source" are usually more about religion/emotions than about facts. The problem with open source on the windows platform is that it strengthens the position of windows, which is too much to cope with for the Linux zealots.
I think we can only debate this issue using facts, however, we will never convince the LAMP fundamentalists. I think the folllowing questions will help in such a discussion:
1. do you accept the prinicples of open source as put forward by the open source initiative?
2. are you willing to explore to what extend DDN adheres to these principles?
These questions will quickly show the openness of mind of our opponent.

Happy hunting...

Peter

If only Open Source came with Open Minds...

http://weblogs.asp.net/sbchatterjee/archive/2005/10/24/428343.aspx

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

with the Firebird project:
adefwebserver.com/firebird
we are hoping to adress the "Open Source" database issue. Again I agree that DotNetNuke should not be considered opensource because it is only running on SQL Server and Oracle right now.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

grr I had a typo in my last comment. I meant that DotNetNuke should not be considered NOT opensource because it is only running on SQL Server and Oracle right now

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Hi Shaun,

Did you see the notable mention of DotNetNuke and comments about Microsoft "shared source" licensing by Tim O'Reilly on his "O'Reilly Radar" blog on October 19th? His ending admonition to the open source community was to encourage (Microsoft) and "Be nice." I'm not sure he's aware that DotNetNuke was released under a BSD license rather than one of the three newly published Microsoft "shared source" licenses though.

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/new_source_licenses_from_micro.html

Regards,

Jean-Marie Bonnar

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Shaun,
You know you’re on to something good when people are challenging the integrity and success of what you and your team have created. Forget the critics. You’re on to something big. Your movement has really taken off and it’s gaining market share. Leaders like DNN will face those challenges and the proof is in the product. DNN is the getting more chatter in the office as a viable open source product. The tuxedos and their “too cool for you” prejudice will have a hard time accepting anything Microsoft as Open Source in their world. But that’s the problem they don’t want to have anything Microsoft in the same room as what they have defined as Open Source. They want clear and distinct differentiation in the market place. Having differentiation gives them an edge against “The Giant”. They don’t want anything to undermine the “underground movement”. Quite the irony as it now stands. You’re in a unique position. A leader, innovator and mentor between a rock and a fast pace. You’re giving something to the Microsoft community that is very helpful in many respects. Using DNN reduces time to market for getting products out the door while taking advantage of best practices and patterns. My opinion, I don’t care if DNN is accepted as Open Source or not by the so called authorities. Make up your own license class, I don’t care. All I care about as a .NET developer is that will this product allow me to get work done and afford me the opportunity to extend and use the product as needed.
At the end of the day producers will choose what gets the job done right and not what has the most hype.
-Lead them and they will follow.
BTW: The Wrox book was useful for me and for several others I know that plan to use DNN for their next initiatives.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

The reason there is no respect for Windows Open Source is because the LAMP folks can not consider your product for use. If it takes a very expensive server operating system (and Windows _server_ is extraordinarily expensive) to run it, the fact that it's Free and Open Source doesn't really matter to them.

If you're looking for "respect" from the Open Source community, give them something they can use. It's like anything else. You derive respect from the people that would use your software. I'm sure you have gobs of respect in the Windows community, and it's that community to whom you should look for to feel good about yourself for your efforts.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

You've been linked from Slashdot. I'll repost here a modified version of what I posted there.
--
I have heard about DotNetNuke here and there, but not very often. This is surprising since it's supposed to be good, is free, and I often do work implementing content management systems. In fact, I've spent many long hours looking through several dozen CMSes for corporate web sites and have never come across someone referring me to DNN. Perhaps the problem is you haven't been noticed by the mainstream CMS people. All I find is standard PHP CMSes like ezPublish and Typo3 along with expensive commercial software.

I also think you've got an uphill battle simply because more people are implementing Apache web sites than IIS web sites. Those people won't be able to spread the word about DNN.

OpenOffice.org gets lots of attention partly *because* it supports Windows, so supporting Windows isn't the problem. Most Linux and BSD people still deal with Windows part time. The main reason why I suspect DNN gets little attention is because it's stuck to a proprietary system: Windows and IIS. Don't brush this off as a non-factor or as zealots who won't use proprietary systems. You're competing against the number one web server by market share and it's hard to sell someone on switching from Apache to IIS just for your app. If you haven't already, you should work on getting DNN working with Mono under the Apache web server in both Windows and Linux. If needed you should contribute code to Mono to fix incompatibilities, although Mono does implement most of .NET so there might not be very much work getting DNN to work with Mono. If DNN worked on Apache and Linux you'd be able to play in the same ballpark as other content management software that is available cross-platform and you'd certainly get a lot of attention from Linux users.

You should remember that most Open Source software is available on multiple platforms. Just look at OpenOffice, GIMP, Firefox, and Thunderbird. If we can develop software to work on Windows surely you folks can develop software to work on Linux... for the end-user, *that* is freedom.

Re: Feel pain...

Shaun,

I can understand your pain: The DotNetNuke team has put together a top-notch product and give it away freely in OSS style. You folks should be proud of your accomplishments.

I am a GNU/Linux user and fan. I would love to see DNN running on Mono with a FLOSS backend, but even without that I applaud your efforts, and say do not get discouraged. OSS anywhere is a step in the right direction.

Just for comparisons sake: I am, unfortunately, condemned to spend my day job writing ASP.NET applications in C# under Windows. To help alleviate the pain of this I utilize Cygwin on a regular basis. Now, Cygwin is also a FLOSS package that runs under Windows, and I am so grateful it exists. The fact that Cygwin is a bunch of ports from GNU/Linux is not important. I feel the same way about DNN, so keep up the good work.

Now, about that Mono port...

Open Source Trademark

You said:

"There is no doubt that the "Open Source" term coined by Eric Raymond ( founder of the Open Source Initiative ) has been subjected to a lot of interpretation in recent years. Since the term is descriptive, it could not be protected by a trademark"

That's not true. It was trademarkable but probably isn't now as it's been in use for too long without a trademark. The people working on trademarking the name didn't see the process through. For example, there exists a trademark for "Open Patents". See http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=kccdec.6.1

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Obviously there are folks who cast OSS into the Windows vs. Linux battle. Too bad, that. DNN is great ... and for those of us living in the MS world (by choice or not), DNN is a welcome CMS option.

The thing is that competition is good. To the extent that there exists the notion that OSS is a tool by which competitive balance might be restored and maintained for the competitors of MS ... it is probably reasonable to expect some hits.

I think that what you are talking about IS respect ... the kind that one competitor has for another which isn't often expressed in the most friendly sort-of way.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Do not worry about what others say or of the credit DNN as offical open source, this is a much more important project than many may understand and that it is given on an open BSD license seals the deal!

I know there is a big wave of DNN coming in the very near future and all of you that have built this along with the DNN community benefit!

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I think, everybody gets obsessed with his/her own ideas. Those, who use Linux and cant use/develop on Windows, would not like Windows (and vice-a-versa).

However, I guess, having a port on Linux, would surely help a great deal, and may be the road via Mono is a right choice :)

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I think Free Software is a better term than Open Source.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

You've answered the dillemma in the first paragraph already... by grouping the subect as the "non-microsoft community" you've pre-selected people with a specific attitude and thus there will of course be no respect garnered. It's about the same as saying... as a Chevy fan I get no respect from non-Chevy fans.

It is a mistake to think that the non-Microsoft community is driven by open source ideals when it only takes a brief sortie to any loonix nerd-fest to realise that it's actually the opposition to Microsoft that bonds them together.

A community with few values is largely bonded by their bogeyman.

I'm no absolutely no doubt that you get ample respect from open source community members who do not belong in the non-Microsoft group. Choose your peers.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Well, how about concentrating on the development of the thriving community around this beautiful windows open source project called DotNetNuke while the open source zealots learn to have an Open Mind in addition to their Open Source :)

Who cares about a bunch of narrow-minded zealots who don't realize they're violating the very same open ideals they vow on. Besides, there is a growing population of non-zealots in the open source movement. We just need to show them how things are done and soon there will be no room for the narrow-minded ones.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

"On its own, DotNetNuke is as pure an Open Source project as it gets."

FreeTextBox, an important part of DNN, is not Open Source as far as I know...

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I compared too many CMS and portals before I switched to DNN and believe me DNN is one of the most advanced systems for portals around. So, don't mind the war between so called real OSS solutions running on Linux and the growing oss Community dedicated to windows. The core team will get its reputation. The introduction of windows server 2003 webedition cuts the cost for hosting, although I was really shocked about the fact, that upgrading MSDE to full Sqlserver is not supported on this edition. That is bad. Bad for thousands of small companies running DNN. This is a reason to worry. There are no such limitations for Linux root servers. Firebird DotnetNuke is such an effort to surpass the limitations and this is the right way. Big companies are still prefering expensive portal systems because they don't mind the costs, and they have the whole server infrastructure already inhouse. In my opinion the key to reputation depends from the database support (f.e. MySQl 5.0 appears to be a serious DB now)
Mono compatibility is a nice feature, but not a must have.
You have really done a great job, so my fav OSS applications are DNN (Win) and Amarok (Linux). ...And php is a toolset for private homepages and not for enterprise & business critical applictions, so I decided to go ahead with asp.net and came to DNN. I often see the words "opensource = openmind". This is the only truth.
DNN is as opensource as opensource can be.

Heaps of Respect from Me

I worked on the SQL product team and the XP Team at Microsoft Redmond from 98 - 2004 and I love what you guys are doing ! DotNetNuke rocks !!

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

abubakar is right on the money! Doesn't LAMP really stand for "Losers Afraid of Microsoft Productivity"?

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I think a better term for what DNN has become is "Shared Source". I've been waiting for over a month now for source to modules distributed with the releases of 3.x and still I wait. While I could be getting familiar with the code as the release versions work their way out I can'y do anything but be frustrated by this. There is now current code for the released WebControls, Repository, etc. Why not post these on source forge. To quote one of you own PM's

"I feel you are being a bit dramatic about this. While I agree that the source should have been released at the same time, I don't think we are no longer open source. I really wish all of you understood what all it takes to get something done around here, then maybe posts like this wouldn't occur as often. I cannot speak for Steve as to why this isn't out yet or when it will be available. I can say that things are beyond the control of just Steve and that if you are a true open source advocate you would probably encourage daily builds, which aren't going to happen. My point is not to bash you in anyways quaker199, it is to enlighten you that open source is just not what you perceive it to be."

I don't think you're open source anymore either and I really question whether you should continue to call DNN that. I guess you'll get that respect when this is really Open Source.

Just my two cents and I know off topic but it was the closest thing I could find when looking for something on "official policy"

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Too often, I hear executives at Microsoft use 'Free software' or 'Open Source' as synonyms for Linux. While they uselly mention their competitors (Oracle, Google, ...); on the other hand, they avoid saying 'mySQL or 'Apache'. The fact that they can't even name these products, seems to me a clear sign that we are on an emotional-irrational battlefield.

My opinion is that it is a major strategic mistake from Microsoft to use a positive expression (Open source) to designate their Linux competition. Doing so, they let the fundamentalists be the sole owners of the positive values commonly associated to Open Source ( freedom, gratis, generosity, innovation, citizenship, etc)

We should all suggest them, whenever possible (DEV DAYS, meetings, etc), to use the words 'Open Source' in a positive context, technologically neutral, and advertise the part of the Windows World which is Open Sourced (ie, DotNetNuke).

This would benefit both Microsoft, and the Open Source initiatives on the Windows platform.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I also think Free Software is a better term than Open Source, and thank you and your folks.

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source...

FREE SHAUN LE MARCHEUR (as free kevin mitnick ;)

Maybe the democraty need to be democratyzed ??

Seb - FRANCE

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

They taught me in MCSE training that Hotmail was originally on Linux when Microsoft bought it for millions and millions. So Microsoft should know that developers want the same thing that Microsoft took advantage of with Hotmail. Linux webhosting costs less than two dollars a month for a high performance LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) webserver. Windows webhosting is more expensive for less advanced performance and features. Not every project needs overkill
complex abstraction, like a whole class hierarchy to declare one variable as object oriented. Sorry, not buying OOP for everything.

^^^ Word of mouth, not an webhosting advertisment

Please know, my Microsoft source code is published in college textbooks. Therefore, I fully support Microsoft Windows. And that is why it pains me to see other Microsoft Windows supporters in denial.

Linux costs alot less for alot higher performance. It is a simple fact.

I attended a Microsoft round-table meeting in New York, and the VP of .NET mentioned coming out with a Linux kernel. That would be a full contribution to this "vibrant community" as they called it.

This post contains constructive criticism. I support Microsoft 100% !

Thank you, Nexties

It's a matter of money...

DNN is a great project, better than every LAMP based ones.
I'm not a fanatic of linux and I don't like MySql: I work many years on Oracle, Sybase, SqlServer and MySql has still a long road to go.
But I have to sell 1000 application DNN based. I have to say to my clients that they must buy a Windows and a SQL Server licenses.
It would be very expensive.
I prefer to port DNN on linux.
I'm testing my MySQL data provider and I'm starting the mono migration.
First task was hard but possible.
Second one is very hard if Core Team is not involved.
Are you interested in getting ''respect from the non-Microsoft community" ?
let me know if you want to let DNN to exit from the ghetto.

cristian

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Shaun,

You/DotNetNuke get my respect however I'm part of the smaller ASP.NET audience.

By making DotNetNuke run under Mono, MySql and PostgreSql, you'll win the Linux audience. Even if you get DotNetNuke on Windows/MySql
you will start to get that audience's respect.

DotNetNuke is not "free" because it needs a defacto database engine that cost $5000 and higher (MS SQL Server). With MySql,
DotNetNuke is almost "free." PostgreSQL its totally free. Yes you can run it on crippled version of a Microsoft database engine (the slums) but
you will need to pay the Microsoft tax if want to move in the world.

Core Support for MySql and PostgreSql is almost like tax cut and will spur the DotNetNuke economy (increase the 3rd party plugins
development)


Currently I see commodity dedicated hosting prices look like this:

$110/month Windows 2003 Commodity Box
$0/month for DotNetNuke Content Managment
$259/month MS SQL 2005 Standard
----------------------------------
$369/month or $4428 year


Verses

$88.99/month RedHat
$0/month Joomla Content Mangement
$0/month WordPress (one best of blogging software)
$0/month for MySQL/PostreSQL
------------------------------------
$88.99/month $1080 year


DotNetNuke with Windows/MySql/PostgreSQL will become the equivalent Target store

Joomla with Linux/MySql is will be Walmart (low prices but I avoid if I can)

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

I must certainly be on the right forum, even though there are no posts in three years. I agree with everything stated above. DNN is an awesome open source portal, in my opinion, far better than PHP Nuke (PHP Nuke has security vulnerabilities). The only other portals competing on this level would be Druple and maybe Joomla, although they are vastly different solutions to the same problem.

Has anyone gotten DNN 4.x, 5.x, any version working with Mono under Apache? I think this is the real criticism behind the Linux community. The constraints of having to use IIS. The constraints of having to use ASP .Net's VB or C# (I like C# btw), instead of a more robust and to-the-point language like Perl, Python, or PHP. Just b/c I pick one content management system over another should not force me in my option of what webserver I want to use and what I want to script with.

If DNN can run under Mono and on Apache, everyone in the Linux community will shut up instantly and probably start coding against that framework. IBuySpy was a step in the right direction, and DNN is very much in the Linux mindset - a great product that is pretty much free. I want DNN under Mono. PLEASE?

Re: No Respect for Windows Open Source

Nice post Shaun, you hit the nail on the head with your 11th commandment.

For many Open Source zealots, the issue clearly seems to be a religious one: a question of faith, not of principles nor objectivity. For all that LAMP devotees that I know like to use the Open Source label to lay claim to the moral high ground, their arguments often have a self-interested subtext which you could sum up as: "let all software development be carried out on the platform and with the development tools that I am most familiar with".

I have no objection to that self-interest: who doesn't have a preference for a particular technology set after investing a lot of time and energy in learning it? But why try to claim that that decision is an intrinsically and morally superior one?

Personally, although I enjoy participating in the DNN open-source community, I'm not convinced that "open source" is necessarily a principle to embrace. I have no doubt that it offers benefits to consumers who do not want to pay for the software that they use. But software development is an economic activity, and like any economic activity, it will only thrive if the people that invest resources and energy in it are able to prosper to an acceptable degree as well.

In the case of software development, the protection of intellectual property offers some degree of assurance to a software publisher that they will be able to recover the investment they have made in producing a product. We recognise the need to protect authors, musicians and film makers (amongst others) in this way. Why not software developers?

As a small software publisher myself, my view is that I will sign up to the Open Source manfiesto and offer free redistribution of my work when builders build houses free of charge, when farmers and supermarkets produce food for nothing and when society has advanced to such a degree that it provides energy and other essential services to its citizens without sending them a bill every month.