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Microsoft Finally Certifies an Open Source Web App

Posted by timothy on from the where's-your-hall-pass-professor dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has caught up with the fact that open source web-based software exists, today announcing an open source project written in PHP is the first 'Certified for Windows' software that (a) follows an OSI-approved license and (b) runs via a webserver rather than operating as a native Windows executable. The software in question is SilverStripe CMS, free software released under a BSD license, that is used to build and manage websites. Certification entails a third-party performing various tests and audits on the software and giving it the green light. If other open source projects can follow suit, this will be another step in getting business folk to see that open source is ready for enterprise use. And heck, maybe even a .NET application could now seek to be certified!"

7 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Tonight On Bizzaro World News ... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Funny

    "If other open source projects can follow suit, this will be another step in getting business folk to see that open source is ready for enterprise use."

    Maybe someday Apache on Linux will be the most popular web server, and HP, IBM, Oracle, and the other big companies will start offering Linux solutions!

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  2. Another troll in the summary by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And heck, maybe even a .NET application could now seek to be certified!

    .NET applications have been certified for years. Spend a couple of minutes on Google and you will find examples for both the server platform and the desktop edition.

    As for SilverStripe, I imagine the reason that open source software would be rare on the list of certified products is that there are costs involved with doing it, and the kind of audience who generally use open souce products probably don't care a damn about any official "certified" logo.

  3. Congratulations SilverStripe? by ooh456 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is surprising news for me as I have been a SilverStripe developer for a couple years now at my primary job. In case anyone is wondering, SilverStripe is a wonderful little enterprise class CMS. Miles ahead in my opinion of the usual suspects in this area ( Drupal, Joomla, WordPress). The real story here is why a small BSD licensed CMS written on the LAMP stack wants to be certified by Microsoft! I guess they want the publicity. But seriously, If you are a php developer looking for a good Object Oriented CMS written is PHP5, you should really take a couple days and check it out. You might really like it. It's not perfect by any stretch, a tad over-engineered, but did I mention it's miles ahead of everything else which calls itself a php5 CMS? Miles.

    1. Re:Congratulations SilverStripe? by unbrandy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hi, I'm Brian, the CEO of SilverStripe. Thanks for your kind words; they mean a lot. To your question of "Why?" here's the answer: it helps our business. We have many potential clients who run MS IT infrastructures. If we have this certification that greatly increases the confidence in SilverStripe in the eyes of the decision-makers in these organizations. We did not make this decision lightly. We thought a lot about how this would be perceived in the open source community. All along the way we said we'd back out if we thought our principles were being compromised. I am proud to say that we're happy with the outcome. Microsoft actually helped us (in dev resource time) to get our software to work well on the MS stack. Now we can tell more people we can work in their environment. It's truly as simple as that. :) Hope that answers your question. If anyone reading this wants to follow up, I am my first name at silverstripe dot com Thanks, Brian

    2. Re:Congratulations SilverStripe? by unbrandy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Good point, Westlake. Our open source product and company have the same name. Now, does getting this certification hurt the open source effors we make? Hmmmm. It's a question. We care a lot about our open source community. Truly. We don't take open source lightly. In my opinion, if we can stay true to our open source goals (BSD and listen to community) and be more attractive to clients (so we can pay people to make more open source software) then there's no harm done. I realize this is a touchy area for a lot of people. Hell, if you would have told me a year ago I'd have an ms certified product in a year's time, I would have asked what kind of crack you were smoking. What changed? Understanding who uses our stuff. But that doesn't change our attitude towards open source. In fact, it strengthens prior attitudes. Because the open source ideal must always be protected :) All good, Brian

  4. Re:Microsoft Certification by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just hope people don't take these certifications too seriously. I don't have experience in an enterprise setting, but do companies not use a certain software because its not certified my Microsoft?

    The point of certification is to make sure that software does certain things right - e.g. can run on 64-bit Windows, installs and uninstalls properly and in correct location, stores config files and other data in appropriate places (and not in e.g. "Program Files"), and doesn't do some things that are silly and potentially harmful (like catching and silently swallowing SIGSEGV). Best way to know what the certification actually means is to read the technical requirements and judge for yourself.

  5. Not the first open source CMS certified by MSFT by yelvington · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's always dangerous to claim you're the first.

    http://buytaert.net/microsoft-and-drupal (2007): "Last week at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Microsoft and SpikeSource announced their intention to work together to certify a number of Open Source projects on the Microsoft Windows platform. According to the press release, Drupal is the first application that has been tested and certified for Microsoft Windows ..."

    See also http://www.microsoft.com/web/drupal/