Microsoft Launches Free Web Software Eco-System 133
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft, inspired perhaps by the ease of selecting and installing iPhone apps, has taken a similar approach to gather back market share of its IIS web server in a predominantly Apache/PHP market. 10 open source CMS, gallery, wiki, and blog tools were chosen to populate the eco-system, dubbed Web App Gallery. Developers must agree to principles and can now submit their PHP or .NET application for inclusion. Once an application is in the gallery, Windows users use Microsoft Web Platform Installer, released in a keynote at MIX this week, which inspects the the local system, and installs and configures dependencies like the IIS webserver, PHP, URL re-writers, and file permissions. Screenshots show this to be quite easy for the typical computer user. This could provide some real competition for WAMP and Linux shell install processes."
But... (Score:4, Funny)
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Will it tie my shoelaces?
Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.
You think this is a sign Microsoft is legitimately trying to reach out to the web community? Or is this just another attempt to grab server market share from Apache and the Linux community?
Generally, I think the last thing the web needs is more servers running IIS.
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Insightful)
You think this is a sign Microsoft is legitimately trying to reach out to the web community? Or is this just another attempt to grab server market share from Apache and the Linux community?
Um.. what's the difference? One thing I can promise you is that Microsoft, like any other company, does what it feels is in its best interest. ie, they aren't trying to do anyone a favor here, they're trying to make more money.
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I guess the difference would be their target audience. Are they targeting some random joe who wants to setup a wordpress blog? Or are they targeting server administrator who would be making the decisions about what software to use?
I can't really tell to be honest.
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm inclined to think that they want to put IIS (and ASP.NET) in front of as many casual Windows-based web developers as possible. Of course with both WAMP and XAMPP taking about three minutes to install I'm not sure that will work - especially since a number of PHP web apps require some odd hacks to get them to work under IIS.
In order to be "deployable" under these settings, new developers will have to use the same hacks and/or workarounds, and could well forget to address how the standard behavior will act on *AMP servers, theoretically creating a bunch of new PHP web apps that will only deploy properly on PHP/IIS servers.
Of course, the number of hosts that are offering PHP/IIS rather than *AMP is absolutely miniscule, so these apps catching on (if this is the case) is slim to none.
Part of me thinks that it's more a ploy to get .NET in front of PHP developers, trying to sell them on the "look at all of this premade, drag-and-drop functionality" thing, but I doubt that will make a difference. Devs that need what .NET offers are going to already be using IIS setups and PHP devs will probably ignore it due to the relatively steep learning curve (or just being forced to work in Visual Studio unless you want to memorize an entire framework).
So... I have no idea. If my cynicism is correct, then I see what they're trying to do but don't see it working that well. If not, then your guess is as good as mine.
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course with both WAMP and XAMPP taking about three minutes to install I'm not sure that will work
Ah but it will, Microsoft developers don't tend to look outside the box to see if there's anything else out there - they generally assume that MS provides all they would ever need, and if MS doesn't provide it, its either not available at all, or they never needed it anyway.
This is why this will succeed, the MS blogs and communities will pick up on it and suddenly they'll think its the best thing ever. I doubt they'll actually use much PHP, that's just the teaser to pre-populate the site with apps, they'll all get taken over with ASP.NET MVC stuff before too long -the MS crowd just don't like to install 'foreign' stuff like PHP when they will think nothing of installing over a gig of .net framework to start playing with C#.
So - I don't know if it'll work well either.
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Isn't Microsoft Developer an Oxymoron?
Microsoft software distribution... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Has it ever struck anyone else that aside from a mediocre Update center Microsofts software delivery mechanism is archaic, almost fundamentally useless? If this level of innovation wasn't systemic throughout our industry (and many others) they would have been laughed out of business a long time ago.
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...when they will think nothing of installing over a gig of .net framework to start playing with C#
Lets let Microsoft spread the FUD please - My installation of .Net takes up pretty much the same amount of space as Java does, around 160MB.
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The redistributables are not exactly a gig - though I always think like that because they are huge (I have to download the full ones to install on my customer's site as they're not connected to the internet)
But: add them up, its not a gig, but its getting there:
plus another 50 odd Mb for th
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I'm not even sure it's that big... the "all these RPMs in a ZIP" archive of the Mono 2.2 runtime for RedHad is around 40MB.
Actually, I just checked, the .NET 2.0 runtime for XP is a 22MB download.
IMHO (and I'm sure this will earn me some /. flames) .NET and C# are a couple of the best things to come out of MS. And I'm quite happy about being able to use them on my Mac (via Mono) when the need arises (and it does, 'cause I do C#/.NET stuff in my day job).
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I'm a Sr dev / team lead at a .com that uses PHP predominately.
Let me tell you something about PHP developers that I've learned, myself included.
The good ones are Software Developers who just happen to know PHP. Without exception, of our 30 developers, the ones that know just PHP are Jr-Level and have much to learn.
The rest of us, there's no joy in PHP. It's a kludge of a language. The garbage collector is horrendous. The external libraries are more buggy and slower than their counterparts in python or ruby
Mutually exclusive? (Score:2)
Frankly, I'd much rather Microsoft did stuff like the above, making their products easier to use, especially with 3rd-party products, than just being plain ar
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Funny)
It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.
Nonsense [thepiratebay.org]
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Funny)
It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.
Search for 'Microsoft' in google. One of the top results will be "Microsoft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"
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It's not every day you see "Microsoft" and "Free" in the same headline.
Search for 'Microsoft' in google. One of the top results will be "Microsoft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"
This begs the question... you search for Microsoft every day?
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Because of that whole embrace, extend and extinguish thing. Install some proprietary hooks (remember Frontpage) and portability goes out the window.
Honestly now, can you imagine Microsoft releasing something that wouldn't involve a mechanism like that? They have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to increase market share as much as possible.
It'll take a while but they've got plenty of patience (and money).
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Could not have said it better myself.
And I might add:
If your not part of the solution, then there are plenty of big bucks to be made prolonging the problem.
And as my doctor once said:
A patient cured, is a customer lost.
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Sounds like you have a knack for picking terribly short-sighted doctors.
We will all age and grow sick. A good doctor will keep seeing -and curing- you until the day that you die.
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody should be surprised by a move like this. Web applications, CMSes and the like, are complementary goods to web servers and OSes. Everybody wants goods complementary to their own products to be cheaper, so as to drive demand. This isn't some sort of philosophical revolution, just Econ 101 + self interest on MS's part.
Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or is this just another attempt to grab server market share from Apache and the Linux community?
This is MS trying to show everyone they can play in the "cloud" with the cool kids. It's the Zune for SAS.
Back in the day MS came out with Explorer and hosed Netscape. Seems like ever since they wait for the trend to establish itself and then come in with a competing product trying to recreate that market capture moment from years ago. Only they show up late with products that are usually tied to their OS platform and maybe a little dorky.
Microsoft trying to be hip and trendy sometimes reminds me of a middle-aged guy hitting on his daughters college-age friends.
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Only they show up late with products that are usually tied to their OS platform and maybe a little dorky.
Doesn't that describe IE?
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Only in the sense that a dorky undoes the lock and let you inside.
Sorry !!
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Explorer never hosed Netscape, it doesn't compete in any way with any Netscape product that ever existed. Internet Explorer on the other hand drove Navigator into the ground and they are still recovering from that.
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Re:Microsoft and what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "free" as in beer, "free" as in cheese in a mousetrap...
Microsoft is a business... (Score:2)
What do you think they'll do?
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Maybe not every day, but 3851 [google.co.uk] in the past month.
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Well, duh, it's both.
Do you think Burger King's new Whopper is a legitimate attempt to reach out to the fast-food community? Or are they just trying to take market share from McDonald's?
I'm inclined to agree, but I think recent IISes are not the
Great, another PHPNuke and Wordpress (Score:4, Insightful)
PHPNuke and other CMS'es or weblog thingies like Wordpress made it simple to create websites for the masses of people that just wanted something simple to host their website. Of course, they never kept up with any of the updates or didn't even give a hoot about security. Next thing you know you have a bunch of websites that are cracked and now serve ads and malware.
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Next thing you know you have a bunch of websites that are cracked and freelance developers can charge big bucks to fix.
FTFY
Danger and opportunity are often the same!
Re:Great, another PHPNuke and Wordpress (Score:4, Insightful)
...and I think the others are usually a lot easier to install. Microsoft's takes at least 5 steps (with steps like 1. "Download, Configure, Install MySQL").
Meanwhile, on many other systems, it is a lot less work:
Ubuntu:
1. In the Programs menu, click "Add/Remove"
2. Select the CMS (or whatever) that you want, and click "Install"
3. Enjoy.
Other debian systems:
1. apt-get install my-favourite-cms
Freebsd: /usr/ports/www/my-favourite-cms; make install
1. cd
And finally, a quick comparison between this new Microsoft way and the usual ways with GNU Linux/BSD:
Installing is easier with GNU Linux/BSD
Configuration is easier with GNU Linux/BSD
Support is generally more available with GNU Linux/BSD
Writing plugins is generally a whole lot easier with GNU Linux/BSD because the code is available
Especially with the new tools available, I believe IIS deserves to die.
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It isn't apache (the webserver) that provides the comfort you describe. The package managing system is. So why should IIS (the webserver) die?
Someone should provide a package managing system to enable the comfort for IIS. Oh, look at that, the summary says Microsoft is doing that.
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Yeah, so what? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Yeah? So what? In Linux or BSD, do you get the nice user experience with a pretty icon to click to install the product? No? I didn't think so!
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That was actually intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek and mocking of the Windows and its users. Linux distro makers rock.
Microsoft web Platform installer or... (Score:2)
This just in... (Score:2, Funny)
Spider invites flies into web. Film at 11.
Big deal. (Score:5, Funny)
[1] I think submitter mis-spelled "feeling threatened".
[2] Big deal. Two open source tools? How many closed-source tools are in the "ecosystem"?
Re:Big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Big deal. Two open source tools? How many closed-source tools are in the "ecosystem"?
Open Source != Good. Closed Source != Bad. Just as open source and bad are not mutually exclusive, closed source and good are not mutually exclusive, regardless of what Stallman thinks. I have used quite a few closed source programs that I like quite a bit, and quite a few open source programs that were plain awful. And vice versa. The idea that in order to be a Good Thing (tm) it has to be Open Source (tm) is a Weird Thing (tm).
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Admittedly, a bad joke.
But, as someone's sig once said:
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Ha. I've actually considered buying the shirt; I just forgot what the summary said... :)
Re:Big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the business side guys, the ones who talk about "open source" who advance the argument that the development model produces better, as opposed to freer or more ethical, software
You don't have to agree with him; but you should, in that case, at least disagree with him rather than somebody else entirely.
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Re:Big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
If I choose Microsoft they will strive to trap me, perhaps not today but someday and for the rest of my life.
The fact that Microsoft is a greedy little spider is not something that should ever be ignored.
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The goal of "maximizing capital investments" is sometimes best served by not giving your company the reputation of a back-stabbing, iron fisted, totalitarian thug. :)
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Open Source != Good. Closed Source != Bad. Just as open source and bad are not mutually exclusive, closed source and good are not mutually exclusive, regardless of what Stallman thinks.
I don't know. Just like the next guy, I think Stallman is probably as crazy as a shit house bat, but my experience has typically been both:
1) Open source = good
2) Closed source = bad
Now, I'm not talking about ALL representative examples of each model. But the representative/preferred examples of major applications within thos
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I think you misspelled "misspelled." ;-)
Not needed for server apps (Score:5, Insightful)
Servers are maintained by people who are not computer newbies and need a GUI. Normally they know how to handle a shell.
Extremely ease install routines for server applications suggest that maintaining a server and keeping it secure is a trivial task, just like clicking those shiny "install" buttons. This is not the case, and you better know how to keep your server save if you run it on the web, especially if you make the somewhat disturbing choice to run it under Windows.
Re:Not needed for server apps (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of people with servers out there that don't know what they're doing and couldn't restart a service if their control panel software got hosed.
Re:Not needed for server apps (Score:4, Insightful)
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By making things easier means you're pushing all the technical knowledge on fewer people (ie the ones building the system) and when it all falls apart you have to rely on the smaller group of people to fix it and by doing so protects a limited set of jobs even more while leaving servers more vulnerable all because some tit thinks he should be able to run a server wi
Re:Not needed for server apps (Score:5, Insightful)
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So IIS is low cost? As low as Apache?
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Real administrators don't use package managers, either. Real administrators know how to handle compiling from source for anything they want to install and spending two hours configuring it for their system.
Real Linux users don't use silly things like synaptic and apt-get and other such command line tools. Real Linux users use wget to get a tarball and compile from source, editing menus in gnome or kde by themselves (if they ever use gnome or kde, most of the time Real Linux Users just use lynx).
The point
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Jesus. Server administrators should be happy about this. Let Joe Developer hack away at his Wordpress install on his local machine, rather than bugging you right away to install it on the server.
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Analogy:
Clicky server application installs, made publicly available on the Internet, is akin to a blind man saying "look, I can drive a train!" if they've ridden on the subway a time or two.
you are wrong (Score:2)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=asp+under+apache [lmgtfy.com]
http://weblogs.asp.net/israelio/archive/2005/09/11/424852.aspx [asp.net]
"How to make Apache run ASP.NET / ASP.NET 2.0
Don't ask me why... but i've been asked to make Apache run ASP.NET.
IT Worked !
Even worked with ASP.NET 2.0 Site !
Following are the instruction to make Asp.Net work under apache:"
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so subsets don't count? (Score:2)
if apache runs under linux- then running asp under apache under linux does not qualify to dispute?
am I misinterpreting your rebuttal?
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Excellent point- I hadn't even twigged to that
here is the real solution
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page [mono-project.com]
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Just because something CAN be done doesn't mean it SHOULD be. I've seen a .NET product forced to run on a Linux server too. Yes, it worked (by and large). Was the amount of time wasted on both sides of the project far, far more than the cost of buying a copy of Windows Server? You bet.
Right tools for the right job. Yes, I could use a clawhead hammer to screw in a screw if I absolutely had to, but like hell am I going to waste my time trying when I could just go out and spend $3 on a screwdriver.
Re:Not needed for server apps (Score:4, Interesting)
The overworked IT guy should know how to run a server using the command line if one of his principle duties is running a server. A command line is no slower than a GUI (its faster in most cases) to someone who knows how to use it. If you hire someone to run a server, they better know what they are doing.
Re:Not needed for server apps (Score:4, Insightful)
No, "elitist nerds" just realize that if you screw this up you could end up being responsible for hosting kiddie porn.
Being "easy to setup" and "easy to setup correctly" are worlds apart.
Even the shiny happiness of Windows doesn't alter this. (despite all the propaganda to the contrary)
Admiral Ackbar has a comment about this. (Score:1, Funny)
"It's a trap!"
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BTW: wrong site for "digging"
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probably: we'll likely still get lock-in (Score:2)
I suspect MS will do something dastardly, like customizing the various CMS systems they use to use MS SQL when they did not do so previously, with different table and row names within the database, providing no ways for your an average user to export the data into any other format than MS SQL.
Sure, it's workable, but for someone who doesn't know how to install things manually - never mind what was installed in the first place? Good luck. He's locked in and stuck using IIS on Windows, now.
Ironic: free softwa
Can you avoid lock in? (Score:2, Funny)
Open source used to undermine Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason why Microsoft is giving support to open source applications is not because it wishes to support open source.
It is because it fears the open source operating system more than anything else. It imagines that if they welcome open source application developers onto the Microsoft platform they will be able to undermine support for the rival operating system (Linux).
If and when the rival operating system fades into disuse, those open source application developers will find that the Microsoft embrace ca
Yeah, The App Store (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Cuz nobody's every thought about a package manager before. Especially not one with a nice, GUI front end.
Hey, maybe Microsoft will adopt something similar for the Xbox 360. You know, to make it easier to download add-ons, small games, videos, and so on. They could call it, I don't know, Xbox Live Marketplace or something. Too bad it's too late for them to have done it for the Xbox. Real shame that.
Playing Catch up to OSX and Linux (Score:2)
Seriously, I do some web dev volunteer stuff. On OSX setting up AMP is so easy. The machine comes with apache and php to start with. Most apps (PHPAdmin/ joomla/ smarty) install easily.
My friend who helps out runs Ubuntu and its again a straight forward installs to get his LAMP going.
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this is mostly to get third party stuff and the dev tools. If the goal is just to get a web dev environment setup period, then it IS pretty much that simple in Windows too, as its preinstalled, its just not activated. You go in the Add/Remove programs, click IIS and ASP.NET, and thats pretty much it. You're missing the database (but for something simplistic, Jet is built in...otherwise you just get SQL Server Express with a next next next finish wizard).
This just makes that all even -easier-, and setup stuf
This is a good thing for open source applications (Score:1, Informative)
Web Software Eco-System (Score:3, Funny)
If it is an entire Eco-System it must include the viruses too I assume?
It also needs a pro-MS slashdot (Score:2)
A platform question (Score:2)
OK ... I've only read up on it a little so far, but I have to ask:
Most of those apps use mysql on the backend (at least WP and Drupal do ... and those are two of the main apps touted). BUT! The platform only mentions SQL Server as far as I've read so far. Is MySQL quietly installed or is this some port of those apps that uses SQL Server? Some DB Abstraction Layer (find that hard to believe)?
Mod me down for not reading enough or being lazy if you want, but I an still trying to figure out how they include
Linux was there first (Score:2)
sudo apt-get install wordpress
Oooooh yeah, that *was* difficult!
Also, this isn't Microsoft copying Apple as much as it's copying Fantastico [netenberg.com]. Fantastico (when combined with cPanel) has had the "point and click to install your web app" thing down for year. Proprietary, yes. Buggy, yes. But it works and is a standard feature on any decent commercial Linux webhosting account.
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And since they are primarily using IE, their computer is usually hosed, so they can't get to the web to look for the information.
That's why they have all these point and clicky things in their servers and support phone lines that charge by the hour.
But for right now, I'm still ahead of the curve, I support Linux servers and only linux servers. Those guys working on MS servers work to hard and know less about what
What if you build it and no one shows UP? (Score:1)
I wish Microsoft well in their endeavor.
PackageKit and free web software. (Score:1, Interesting)
There are already open source projects for this kind of functionality.
PackageKit [wikipedia.org] already have a basic start [gnome.org] for something like this.
The web frontend for PackageKit can be further developed. The web software developers should be encouraged to develop simple web based configuration for their applications.
Easy to configure web based applications with PackageKit based package management have a lot of positive aspects.
PackageKit - Main Page [packagekit.org]
PackageKit - Screenshots [packagekit.org]
Installing public web pages from tarballs has alw
Appnr (Score:1)
Streamlining 40% of installations (Score:1)
This makes sense somehow for MS... (Score:1)
He said "compatible" Beavis ... (Score:2)
"Be Compatible: The application to which you provide a link must run on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP & Windows Vista using best practices on running ASP.NET applications and PHP applications on IIS."
Heh heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh.
Well, whatever. It's all Microsoft Windows to me.
Meh (Score:2)
Windows will be a thing of the past, come April 1...
I'll stick to my LAMP server and WAMP program (Score:1)
They run faster and you shouldn't run services on a desktop machine anyways if you worry about slowness. Put linux on an old computer, setup the LAMP, and there you go. Samba will allow you to access the files directly and you can even use the old computer as a dedicated server. No need to purchase Windows 2k3 or 2k8.
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try douching the sand out of it