Bill Gates
IIS module for Mollom
Zion Security, a Belgium-based company specializing in the security analysis of web sites and systems, has used Mollom's open API to develop a Microsoft IIS module utilizing Mollom to detect and prevent comment and posting spam.
This module is unique in that it is a HTTP module coded for Microsoft IIS, comparable to an Apache module, and allows Mollom to potentially expand to a number of ASP/IIS based systems.
The Mollom IIS module is available as a zipped file for download here and is listed on our downloads page. It checks any submitted form for spam using Mollom's spam detection analysis, and like other Mollom plugins, requires you to obtain a set of registration keys from mollom.com before it can be actively used to protect your ASP-based forms.
Because it is written as a module at the webserver layer, it may be possible to use Mollom's spam-detection and CAPTCHA challenge ability with existing web applications running on IIS (think SharePoint or DotNetNuke). It's an interesting approach and one we haven't really considered ourselves. It will be interesting to see how this develops, and if it sticks.
Microsoft promoting Drupal
Microsoft announced its Web Application Gallery at its annual MIX conference today. The exciting news for many of us is that Drupal is one of the first 10 applications to be included as part of the Web Application Gallery. Other open source applications including Wordpress, SilverStripe, and Gallery also made into the initial group.
The Microsoft Web Application Gallery follows on from last year's Web Application Installer, but it is even better. The Web Application Gallery allows you to browse and discover web applications that install and deploy well on Windows, and offers a simplified download/install experience for these applications and all of Microsoft's free web products that these applications run on. Just click the 'Install' button on the Web Application Gallery and you'll be guided through the installation process. For people running Windows Vista, 2003 Server, XP or Windows 7, the installer automatically configures IIS6 or IIS7 appropriately for PHP and Drupal, installing the required MySQL database and PHP's mod-rewrite rules and required extensions. Note that Drupal does not support Microsoft SQL, and that Microsoft will not automatically install MySQL at this point -- the installer prompts users to download and install Windows binaries for MySQL from mysql.com.
Because we believe this is an opportunity to introduce Drupal to hundreds of thousands of new users, Acquia worked with Microsoft to help package Acquia Drupal for the Web Application Gallery. When Microsoft approached us, we were cautious at first, but quickly realized this could be a great opportunity for both Drupal, and the Open Source community at large. We were further encouraged when the Microsoft Web Platform team provided us every resource we needed to get the job done in record time, including dedicating a full-time engineer to work with us. While not perfect in version 1.0 we are encouraged by this new direction.
One interesting aspect of this cooperation is that the actual Drupal code, along with the Web Application Gallery metadata, is all hosted and maintained by Acquia (not by Microsoft). Whenever we roll a new release of Acquia Drupal, the Web Application Gallery will automatically point to the latest version of Acquia Drupal. It is integrated in our testing environment and build loops. In addition, all support for this IIS-friendly Acquia Drupal package can be handled through Acquia's support forums.
This kind of arrangement makes things very scalable for Microsoft. Going forward, anyone will be able to submit their ASP.net and PHP applications for inclusion in the Web Application Gallery. If Microsoft chooses to push this hard, and markets these applications to the millions of Windows developers world-wide, it is likely we'll be seeing hundreds of Free and Open Source applications being added to the Web Application Gallery. Microsoft also told us that they are working on an SDK that will allow third-party applications, such as Plesk and cPanel, to integrate with the Web Application Gallery, enabling their customers to install all the Web Application Gallery software directly on their Windows-based hosting accounts instead of their local desktop.
Microsoft ships Drupal
Microsoft just announced the Web Application Installer. It is an installer designed to help get users of the Windows operating system up and running with some popular web applications. Guess what? It comes with support for Drupal. I don't know enough about their roadmap but this could introduce Drupal to millions of new users. Oh my!
From the Web Application Installer page: Web Application Installer provides support for popular ASP.Net and PHP Web applications including Graffiti, DotNetNuke, WordPress, Drupal, OSCommerce and more. With just a few simple clicks, Web Application Installer will check your machine for the necessary pre-requisites, download these applications from their source location in the community, walk you through basic configuration items and then install them on your computer.
I don't have a Windows machine so I can't test it out, but it sounds like a great way for Windows users to explore Drupal. (Hat tip: Jelle Druyts)
MIT's Emerging Technologies Conference
Funny anecdote: I was waiting backstage to go on stage for my TR35 elevator pitch on Drupal at MIT's Emerging Technologies Conference, scheduled to be directly after Craig Mundie's keynote presentation. (Craig is one of the two people that replace Bill Gates now he is retired.) When he walked off the stage, he stopped and jokingly said "Good luck, I warmed up the audience for you.". He probably didn't know that I was going to talk about Open Source software. ;-)
Either way, it is a great testament for all of us who work on Drupal that MIT recognizes Drupal as an important emerging technology, and that we are now on the radar of even more great technology leaders. Rock on!
From left to right: Dan Farber (Editor in Chief, CNET), David P. Anderson (Professor, University of Berkeley, SETI@home), Matthew Glotzbach (Product Management Director, Google), Parker Harris (Executive Vice President Technology, Salesforce.com), Mendel Rosenblum, (Chief Scientist and Cofounder, VMware), and Werner Vogels (Chief Technology Officer, Amazon).
From left to right: Erika Jonietz (Senior Editor, Technology Review), Elizabeth Altman (Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Motorola Mobile Devices), Kevin Lynch (Chief Technology Officer, Adobe Systems), Masaaki Maeda (President and CEO, DoCoMo), and Rich Miner (Group Manager, Mobile Platforms and Android, Google).
Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Microsoft and Drupal
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 ...
Because I didn't know this partnership was in the works, and because it's not clear what this really means, I figured I'd let the story develop for a couple of days. It has since been picked up on a number of blogs and news sites, and I got a couple of inquiries about it as well. I guess now is a good time to share what I think about it.
First, Microsoft's willingness to work with Open Source applications to ensure that they work on Microsoft Windows Server with MSSQL and Active Directory support is great –- it helps us bring Open Source software to the corporate world. Microsoft's announcement brings credibility to Open Source software and validates Drupal as one of the leading Open Source CMS applications. That is a good thing.
Second, I've never been close to either SpikeSource or Microsoft's business but hopefully it won't stop with an announcement. It remains to be seen whether they live up their marketing drum. With the help of Larry Garfield we already started planning a redesign of Drupal's database abstraction layer. I'm curious to see if they'll contribute to that, and if they will help us add and maintain MSSQL support in future versions of Drupal core. In the Open Source world, contributions speak louder than press releases.
De Morgen interview
On March 15, Flemish newspaper De Morgen published an article about the fact that Drupal is being used by various candidates in the 2008 race for the US presidency.
While that is great information to share, the article is overly sensational, focuses too much on me rather than on the Drupal community, and comes with the seemingly obligatory Bill Gates reference. Sigh!
Credit should be given where credit is due: Drupal's successes should be attributed to the Drupal community, of which I am just one part.
Trends interview
André Gilain interviewed me about Drupal for Trends, a Belgian business magazine. You can find the article in the June 15 issue of Trends Tendances (French version), or you can read it in full by clicking the link below.
PDF version, © Trends.
This is really good publicity for Drupal, and it is exciting to see our work getting so much recognition.
I'm not sure that I like being called the "anti-Bill Gates" -- it is not like I'm a modern hippy fighting windmills, am I? I wish that the article was more about Drupal and the Drupal community, and less about me. Credit should be given where credit is due: Drupal's successes should be attributed to the Drupal community, of which I am just one part.
