Microsoft launches open source .Net package manager

Microsoft began offering on Wednesday an early version of NuPack, an open source package manager for its .Net software development platform.

Also, Microsoft is providing a beta version of its ASP.MVC (Model View Controller) 3 technology and a second beta release of its WebMatrix Web site-building tool.  [ Keep up with app dev issues and trends with InfoWorld's Fatal Exception blog and Developer World newsletter. ]

The company's NuPack technology works with .Net project types, including ASP.Net WebForms, ASP.Net MVC, and others. "NuPack is a free open source package manager that makes it easy for you to find, install, and use .Net libraries in your projects," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in a blog post. A developer preview is available at the Codeplex website.

"Our goal with NuPack is to make it as simple as possible to integrate open source libraries within .Net projects. It will be supported in all versions of Visual Studio," said Guthrie. Microsoft anticipates NuPack serving as a fundamental component of the .Net stack and that it will encourage more .Net developers to use open source libraries.

Developers maintaining open source projects, such as Moq and NHibernate, can use NuPack to package up libraries and register them with an online gallery, or catalog, that is searchable, Guthrie said. Dependency management between libraries is handled.

"The client-side NuPack tools, which include full Visual Studio integration, make it trivial for any .Net developer who wants to use one of these libraries to easily find and install it within the project they are working on," Guthrie said.

NuPack has been accepted as an addition to the Outercurve Foundation's ASP.Net Open Source Gallery. Outercurve is an open source projects organization formerly known as CodePlex and launched by Microsoft.

Microsoft on Wednesday also launched a beta release of ASP.Net MVC 3, which is an update to the ASP.Net MVC 3 Preview that shipped two months ago. The beta release includes enhancements to the Razor view engine option, including cleaner MVC integration. New view helper methods are supported as well.

The beta release is accessible at Microsoft's website. AJAX and Validation helpers in the package use an unobtrusive JavaScript approach by default. NuPack integration also is supported as well as extended dependency injection. Helpers and classes are featured to improve "everyday coding," Guthrie said.

Microsoft's WebMatrix Beta 2 offers Web page enhancements as well as improved templates and NuPack integration. WebMatrix is a tool for building Windows Web sites. The release is available at the WebMatrix website.

"Today's releases further evolve and enhance the Microsoft Web Stack," Guthrie said. "All of the above capabilities work with .Net 4 and [Visual Studio]  2010 and do not modify any existing files that ship with it -- they are all additive and safe to install on your machine."

This article, "Microsoft launches open source .Net package manager," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter.

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Palm launch Open Source Developer Program

Palm has announced a programme for open source developers wishing to write for Palm's Linux based WebOS. For closed source applications the Palm developer programme requires an upfront fee of $99 (£62) from developers, with a $50 (£31) fee for each app that is published through Palm's App Catalogue. For open source developers both the up front fee and the per app fee is waived. Palm's WebOS currently only runs on Palm's Pre and Pixi phones; the Pre is due to be available in the UK from the 16th of October from O2.

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UK Needs To Be More Open To Open Source

During a discussion in Whitehall, industry experts concluded that the government needs to embrace open source more.

The UK is laging behind Europe and the US when it comes to the adoption of open source in government.

That's the conclusion reached today by a senior Ovum analyst during a roundtable discussion on the government’s use of open source software.

Laurent Lachal, Ovum's open source research director, said that, from the start, Europe has been interested in the adoption of open source but has since dragged its heels.

“In the US there was some sort of prejudice against open source but in effect they used it from the start, just didn’t talk about it. Now they are out," he said. "The UK started out like the US but didn’t really warm up to it until recently.”

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Study: Open Source Software Is Improving

The code analysis tools vendor, Coverity, has released the 2009 edition of the Coverity Scan Open Source Report[icon:pdf]. The survey, which was originally initiated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2006, examines the integrity and quality of open source software. The results are based on an analysis of 11 billion lines of code from 280 open source projects including Firefox, Linux, PHP, Ruby and Samba over three years. The analysis was carried out using Coverity's Scan service.

One of the study's conclusions is that the integrity, quality and security levels of open source code are improving. Since 2006, Coverity's Scan service has exposed more than 11,200 flaws in 180 submitted programs, allowing programmers to fix the detected flaws. The vendor has found that the number of flaws detected by static analysis has decreased by 16 per cent overall.

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Open Source guru Sam Ramji quits Microsoft

Ramji, who was till date senior director of Platform Strategy of Microsoft, had joined the company about five years ago

BANGALORE, INDIA: Open Source Guru, Sam Ramji, has announced to leave Microsoft to join a cloud computing startup, CodePlex Foundation.

Ramji, who was till date senior director of Platform Strategy of Microsoft, had joined the company about five years ago. In his blog on typepad.com (http://samus.typepad.com/what/2009/09/moving-on-and-the-codeplex-foundation.html), he said, "After 5 great years at Microsoft I am moving on. I'll be joining a cloud computing startup later this month in Silicon Valley. It was a hard decision, as the time I've spent at that company has been both challenging and rewarding."

Explaining the reasons for parting ways, he said that it was all for personal reasons; wife and family. "I have decided to move our family back to California. I decided that I could not do justice to a corporate/worldwide position from afar, and that I could not bear to live away from my family and commute to Seattle five days a week."

Sharing his viewpoint about the open source, he said that, "I was certain that open source was an industry wave that Microsoft would not be able to ignore, and that it was getting closer to an inflection point.

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Open source software can save India $2 bn

As Indian consumers and enterprises evaluate the option of upgrading to Microsoft’s much-touted operating system (OS) Windows 7, to be officially launched on October 22, the free and open source software (FOSS) community has fired yet another salvo at proprietary software.

In the year 2010, if FOSS is adopted at 50 per cent levels across the economy, India can save around $2 billion (around Rs 9,800 crore), suggests a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore. Even a very conservative estimate, notes the study, pegs the cost savings for use of FOSS on servers as an operating system or as an application at Rs 138 crore in 2010.

Moreover, anti-virus software sales in 2010 is likely to touch Rs 2,000 crore. This entire amount is a cost that can be avoided if FOSS products are adopted.

For instance, based on the projected sales of personal computers (desktops and notebooks), the study indicates that even if 50 per cent desktops are fitted with a FOSS operating system, the savings will be Rs 985 crore; if 70 per cent have FOSS, the savings will rise to around Rs 1,380 crore. The study, done with help from professors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, covered 20 organisations that have adopted FOSS.

Examples of cost savings with FOSS abound in the Indian context, asserts Prof Rahul De of the IIM-Bangalore who conducted the study. For instance, the Life Corporation of India, which — with an IT infrastructure of 3,500 servers and 30,000 desktops — saved about Rs 42 crore by adopting FOSS.

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Free Open Source Software: Bliss for Windows Users

Windows and Open Source seem to be mutually exclusive to each other. To most of the people, these are two different spectrums that can not overlap and intermingle.

If we talk of them simultaneously, we may invite conntroversies but this is not the scenario anymore. The landscape for free open source software that Windows users can really vouch on is increasing day by day.

The article will walk you through the various open source software that are available for free and really useful on Windows interface:

Filezilla: Filezilla is a full featured free Windows FTP solution that Windows users can use to upload their files. It is a full featured service that Windows users can use free of charges for a productive process. Filezila offers you the ability to handle the batch transfers and most operations are drag and drop affair. With this FTP Solution, you can sync files from a distant location.

The FTP Solution is the most powerful FTP clients available but its not so friendly interface is the bottleneck for the product.

Open Office: Get going with word processing tools anywhere and anytime with the open source office productivity suite. Open Office.org offers full office suite including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and database tools. It gives tough competition to proprietary documenting tools from Microsoft and other SaaS offerings from Zoho and Google. The service is accessible from everywhere but unreliable import/export capabilities serve as the block. It is a powerful business productivity tool to save costs.

Firefox: It is the most sought web browser after Internet Explorer. This is one service that synonyms free open source. To people who are not so tech savvy, Internet Explorer is the best choice but to the generation who needs speed and faster access, Firefox is the best choice. The service is available for free downloads and is a good tool for use on Windows, if someone is looking for alternatives. Its customization abilities make it the most looked up browser.

TrueCrypt: The free encryption tool is at par with Microsoft BitLocker and in fact offers the same set of encryption utilities that users look for. It provides full disk encryption with key based recovery. On a broader note, it surpasses the security offerings of BitLocker with its support for many encryption protocols and more flexibility.

With its flexibility and compatibility with many protocols, the tool is a good free contender against Microsoft BitLocker.

7-Zip: The free open source compression software is at par with other paid compression tools like RAR and ACE. The package decompresses quickly and reliably. It offers everything that a user hunts in basic compression solution and is faster.

If you still confuse, Firefox and Linux for free open source, then you must try your hands on these free open source software for Windows; they are worthy enough for continual usage.

Source: http://www.itvoir.com/

Red Hat Launches Distribution Effort With Open-Source ISVs

Red Hat is combining its portfolio of open-source software with applications from third-party ISVs and selling the bundles to customers through the channel under a program unveiled this week.

The move is designed to broaden the market for Red Hat software by developing more complete solutions for midsize companies, said Roger Egan, vice president of channel sales in North America, in an interview.

Red Hat launched the Catalyst Program at the Red Hat Summit & JBoss World conference in Chicago this week. The effort will include development of a social networking and collaboration Web portal to help build a community around the vendor's entire ecosystem, Egan said.

"The way we increase the sale of Red Hat products is to sell solutions," Egan said. "For us to really penetrate the midmarket, we really have to talk about solutions."

The Catalyst Program is in addition to Red Hat's main channel partner program. Two weeks ago, the company revamped that program, adding a new "premier business partner" designation to the existing Advanced and Ready partner tiers. The company wants to increase the amount of sales it makes through the channel from about 55 percent today to more than 70 percent.

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Open Source Is Our Next Level: Microsoft

As open source is adopted on a range of platforms, understanding, engaging and supporting open source development will continue to be fundamental to enabling more customer choice, says Sam Ramji

BANGALORE, INDIA: Recently, Microsoft released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community. The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree.

The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

Sam Ramji, sr. director, Platform Strategy, MicrosoftSam Ramji, sr. director, Platform Strategy is responsible for developing sustainable partnerships with open source communities as part of his role as senior director of Platform Strategy in Microsoft's Server and Tools organization. This includes overseeing the operation of Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center (OSTC), which serves as a landing point for open source communities and companies interested in working with Microsoft, as well as a resource for Microsoft product groups interested in open source technology.

Tom Hanrahan, who also plays a critical role in Microsoft's day-to-day open source interoperability efforts, is the director of the OSTC. His team played a key role in the development of the drivers, and will manage their ongoing enhancement.

Sam Ramji and Tom Hanrahan talk about releasing Linux device driver code to the Linux community in an interview with CIOL. Excerpts:

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The Best Free Open Source Software for Windows

InfoWorld - To many, free open source software and Microsoft Windows seem to be mutually exclusive. After all, the open source development model is most closely associated with the Linux OS and, to a lesser degree, various Unix derivatives. So when you mention the two together, you often get some rather strange looks. This is a shame because there exists a growing landscape of compelling free and open source solutions just waiting for the intrepid Windows user.

You probably already know one of them well. Firefox has long stood as a prime example of how the open source development process can work to deliver a first-class solution that rivals, and in many ways surpasses, the best that the commercial side has to offer. However, it would be a mistake to make that arduous (for novices) trek to Mozilla.com and stop there. Over the horizon are many more FOSS-on-Windows treasures waiting to be discovered, including tools that can improve your productivity, expand your lines of communication, and help keep you safe from threats along the way.

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Why Choose Open Source?

re you thinking of creating a new online store or upgrading an existing one? Chances are you have already considered Open Source Software (OSS) or you already using it. If not then its time to get educated on the benefits of such an approach. This is the first in a series of blog posts on how to develop a comprehensive strategy for incorporating open source into your business. Here are a few benefits of following such a strategy.

Cost

Cost is probably the first reason that jumps to mind when you hear the term "open source." There are no license fees to worry about with OSS and there are typically only minor restrictions on how the software is used (depending on the license.) In many cases, the cost of the license is a pretty compelling reason to use an open source product, especially for companies on a budget.

Support

Most commercial software vendors like to brag about the great support they offer. Support is one of those areas where companies make their money so you should be somewhat skeptical of what they are promising you. Many open source projects have very strong communities associated with them. They are filled with developers (and developer shops) that can help you with custom features, installation, etc. Its true that not all contractors are going to do a good job for you but the same can be said for the paid support staff of a commercial vendor.

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Google Open Sources Parts of Google Wave's Code

In May, at the Google I/O developer conference, the search engine giant unveiled Google Wave -- a Web platform that integrates e-mail with IM, document sharing, for near real-time interaction and collaboration. Now, Google intends to open source the platform's protocol and a significant portion of its code. Google has also made the Operational Transform (OT) code open source to all.

The Operational Transform (OT) code supports the Google Wave platform, while the underlying protocol is supposedly a simple client/server prototype that uses the Wave protocol. Google Wave is based on the operational transformation architecture introduced by the Jupiter Collaboration System developed at Xerox PARC. What is does is it puts all shared content on the server. A client cannot edit content without sending an operation to the server. The operation cannot be sent unless the server allows the client to send one. According to Google, this method does require the server to keep multiple copies of content for each client.

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Was Microsoft's Open Source Hand Forced?

The saga of Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s contributions to the kernel just took another curious step. A key engineer with open source network-infrastructure company Vyatta indicated that Microsoft had no choice but to post the drivers as GPL. The implication is that they wouldn't have if no one had pointed it out to them.

The blog post, by "Linux Network Plumber" Stephen Hemminger, indicates that the original drivers were not GPL-compatible. They linked to statically-compiled, closed-source binaries through a kernel interface that was tagged in such a way that they should only be used by GPL-compatible (open source) modules. Dismayed, Stephen passed word back to Greg Kroah-Hartmann of Novell (NSDQ: NOVL), who in turn passed word on to Microsoft. The source code for the whole driver set was released four months later.

This has sparked a whole slew of speculation on whether or not Microsoft was testing the water to see what they could get away with. If nobody asked them to release the Hyper-V drivers as GPL, the thinking goes, would they have done so? Greg thought so, and said as much elsewhere. But when confronted with the fact that there are indeed many eyes on the situation, they did the right thing -- or, at the very least, the smart thing.

Perhaps they had always intended to release the whole thing as an open package, and were simply trying to get the timing right. The announcement was made more or less on top of OSCON this week -- along with some other open source related announcements from Microsoft, so perhaps once the ball got rolling internally to do this, they decided to simply talk about all of it at once. This sounds like a very Microsoftian thing to do, since it presents more of a feeling that the company is working in a single unified fashion (something they clearly pride themselves on).

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How to Bring Open-Source Software into the Enterprise

Open-source software has gained growing acceptance in the enterprise. Once enterprises put in place the same governance, policy and support processes around open-source software as they do with proprietary software, there is no limit to how much open-source software they can bring into their organization. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Carol J. Rizzo offers five tips on how to bring open-source software into your organization in a way that maps to your corporate risk factors, making open-source software no more or less of a risk than proprietary software.

Over the past decade, I've served as CTO of three different Fortune 500 companies. In each of those companies, one of my primary responsibilities was to mitigate risks associated with technology. During the same period, open-source software has gained growing acceptance in the enterprise. Properly sourced, open-source software can bring so much to the table: lower cost solutions, high-quality software and all the other benefits that come from active and altruistic developer and user communities.

However, there is a long-established, risk-averse mindset within many large companies. Companies have established software procurement practices which depend upon an interaction and relationship with a vendor. This has slowed the adoption of open-source software which, similar to commercial software, still has to be adopted under certain guidelines.

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Chrome OS Could Offend the Open Source Community

The announcement a few days ago of Google's new Chrome OS was simultaneously shocking and expected. It's a typically understated and quietly ambitious move on behalf of Google. It's also proof -- if it were needed -- that Google people are supremely smart. They have their sights firmly set on the future as well as the here and now.

Chrome OS is initially targeted at netbook computers but it's anticipated it will spread to more mainstream computing devices as time goes on. Like Intel's Moblin OS, Chrome OS is a proof of concept that will use the hothouse environment of netbook computing to grow and mature.

I'm reasonably sure that Chrome OS will offend the open source community. There may even be a major reaction against it. You might not see open source luminaries picketing the Googleplex (although I wouldn't be surprised), but there will almost certainly be a handful of inflammatory blog postings, and some very hot collars.

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How Open Source Is Growing Up

There is no doubt that free technologies, mainly open source software, are proving more popular both inside and outside the computer industry.

Behind this growing acceptance is a non-commercial movement of independent developers that are putting together the open source software that anyone can use.

Paul Allen, editor of ComputerActive magazine, said the defining feature of open source software was that the set of tools and systems were developed by enthusiasts rather than big companies.

But he added it should be treated as "free thinking rather than a free lunch" because it is not always free of charge.

Out of this movement have come fully-fledged programs, such as Open Office for e-mail, spreadsheets, word processing and presentations, and VLC for video, that were put together for free by a community of people.

"The entire source code for the software is made available to the community and anyone can modify it," said Phil Andrews from open source software provider Red Hat.

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Microsoft Weighs Next-Phase In Open-Source Support

Microsoft's, shall we say, cautious engagement with open-source could mean frameworks like Spring and Hibernate are the next projects tuned to Windows.

Sam Ramji, director of the open-source development lab, in a recent interview pointed to the rise in what he called "micro frameworks" and their importance.

"It's something we have to be a lot closer to," Ramji told The Reg, noting Microsoft had held talks with the SpringSource company and "a couple of their other folks."

Ramji also hinted at deeper work in areas already visited by Microsoft, specifically in the realms of Apache and on PHP.

"There's a lot more work to do with Apache for sure. There are open-source communities like SpringSource we have to do a lot more work with - they have really rich Java and .NET sides. There's a lot more work to do with the PHP community. A lot of what we are into now is we've built up some great opportunities we can now cont to get deeper in," he said.

Ramji did not get into details.

Spring founder and SpringSource chief executive Rod Johnson separately pointed to areas for improvement between the ubiquitous Spring and Windows.

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223 Million Smartphones with Open Source by 2014

According to a recently published report coming from telecom consultants Juniper Research, the number of mobile phones that will be shipped on the market running under an open-source platform is expected to more than double by 2014, reaching 223 million units, up from the 106 million shipped this year.

The firm also says that open-source operating systems, coupled with the applications they carry, are playing an important role in the process of differentiation between new smartphones. At the same time, it seems that the platform present on the mobile phones is a key factor that determines the customers' options when choosing a new device.

As many of you might already know, Symbian has started its move towards becoming open source, which marks an important shift in the mobile operating system market. Moreover, another important step in the area has been made by Apple with the release of its App Store, an innovative move that started a trend in the market and also attracted a lot of users.

The research firm also says that the migration towards open source in the OS area is also an encouraging factor for developers, which come to display attractive applications. At the same time, the fact that more than 60 percent of the OS market is open source can be seen as a means to open new doors for innovation.

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Ten Reasons Open-Source Smartphones Will Win Out

Open source brings far more benefits to the mobile market than just cost savings, says Jack Wallen.

The mobile industry is becoming interesting. We have finally reached a point where the smartphone is actually smart and the average user can gain serious benefits from using one. How did this come about? In a word: competition.

When the iPhone arrived on the scene, users scrambled to get their hands on it, and competitors scrambled to make a device that would have the same appeal. It has taken a while, but the competition has arrived. Android phones, Palm Pre, BlackBerry Bold — they are all outstanding entries into this market.

But two of those entries will, in my opinion, outshine the rest for one simple reason — open source. Why is open source going to help raise these phones above the competition? Here are 10 reasons.

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'Open source is more stable and better supported'

The CPM has long supported the free software movement and launched a poll website based on such software. The BJP's L K Advani recently threw his weight behind open source technologies. Jonathan Schwartz , CEO of Sun Microsystems, tells Sujit John that open source indeed is the future:

Is the rate of adoption of open source technologies growing?

It's accelerating rapidly. And with economic pressures mounting, free enterprise software is looking more and more compelling. Open office, our free office productivity suite, is now downloaded 1,00,000 times a day. A year ago, it was half that. Downloads of Glassfish, our open source application server, has also doubled in the last one year, and that of MySQL, the open source database, has increased 30 per cent. This is partly because of our awareness campaigns, but more because of the IT budget cuts, which push you to look for the best free software available to run your business systems.

Where do you see the fastest adoptions?

The fastest adoptions are in places where there's rapid economic expansion, good bandwidth and large student populations. We have seen some of the highest adoptions in India because of the first and third reasons. Universities are major seeding grounds for open source innovations. And when these students join the workforce or start their own companies, they disproportionately tend to select free software. We did a poll of 2,000 university students and found that less than 6 per cent knew Oracle database, but more than 90 per cent knew MySQL.

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