A Chat With Apache Software Foundation President Justin Erenkrantz

by hjanssen on April 16, 2007 04:04pm

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog called ‘We're Writing Firefox Plug-ins? Interview with Ian Gilman and Thoughts on 10 Months at Microsoft’ (Who came up with that title anyway!)

In which I chronicled my first 10 months on the job. Also in there I mentioned Microsoft writing plug-ins.

Well today I am very proud to announce that we have released another official Microsoft plug-in. It shows another level of interoperability and eagerness in working with the Community to get this released.

This plug-in allows you to use Windows Media Player inside of Firefox. It is designed to support the following Windows platforms;

• Windows XP SP2 (x86)
• Windows XP SP2 (x64)
• Windows Vista (x86)
• Windows Vista (x64)

Port25 is hosting it, and you can download it from here; Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin - Download

It was put together by the Windows Media Player team, and special thanks go to Eric Anderson and Thobias Jones. (And all the other people in the Windows Media Player team). I also wanted to thank Mike Schroepfer and the Mozilla Foundation in helping us get this released.

From now on when you go to the plug-in site at Firefox, you will be automatically routed to Port25 to download and install the plug-in.

It is backwards compatible with the old 6.4 Windows Media Player. And among other things has the following new features;

• New robust design that addresses all of the known issues with the old plug-in
• Windows Media Player will now work with Firefox on Windows Vista
• Support for the Windows Media Player OCX scripting interfaces

We will post some links to example code in the next few days to help people use some of the new features.

Install it, and to test it just go to Port25 and check out any of the videos.

I recently returned from Paris, where I attended both the annual Open Source Think Tank and Open World Forum events. It was really great getting to chat with some of the folks representing the myriad of businesses that have sprung up around Open Source solutions, and having some in-depth discussions about broad industry trends.

The Open Source Think Tank is pretty much a unique event in that it gives attendees the opportunity to examine open source and cloud evolution through detailed analysis and discussions of specific industry related case studies, as well as panels, presentations and networking opportunities with a collaborative group of folks from across the industry.

For its part Open World Forum brings together hundreds of decision-makers, developers and users from across the world to discuss Open technological, business and societal initiatives to help shape the digital future

I was happy to be able to participate in a number of panel discussions at both events. At the Think Tank, I got to brainstorm on the topic of “Open Source Ethos as an Agent of Change," which essentially looked at how closed source companies use the open source ethos to energize their companies and change how they relate to their customers, partners and employees. I was joined by Erynn Petersen of AOL and Gil Yehuda of Yahoo, and a lively conversation ensued.

From a Microsoft perspective I pointed out how we recognize the value of openness in working with a diverse array of OSS communities to help developers, customers and partners succeed in today's heterogeneous IT environments.

I noted that we now have a better appreciation for how the open source development model can be useful for our own software development as well as the potential for Microsoft technologies to be great platforms for open source applications. I also briefly talked about our increased investments in standards, interoperability and integration with Open Source Software.

The second Think Tank discussion revolved around Open Source, Open Systems and Open Standards and what that means today. Larry Augustin from SugarCRM and Yahoo's Gil Yehuda also participated, and a lively discussion ensued, a lot of which was way off topic :-)

by Peter Galli on May 10, 2010 11:38am

More good news on the Interoperability front: the new phpBB release is now available for installation from the Windows Web Application Gallery and Web Platform Installer (Web PI) for Windows, IIS and SQL Server.

Version 3.0.7-PL1 of phpBB takes advantage of a number of features for PHP applications on the Microsoft Web Platform with Windows, IIS and SQL Server, including SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1, which provides key interoperability for PHP applications to use SQL Server or SQL Azure for data storage, and is released under the OSI approved MS-PL license and available on CodePlex.

It also takes advantage of WinCache Extension for PHP 1.0.1, which provides increased performance for PHP applications on Windows and IIS, and which is released under the BSD license and available from the PHP Extension Community Library (PECL) website.

This is just another example of Microsoft's commitment to enabling interoperability of the Microsoft Web Platform. As part of the process, Microsoft contributed a patch to the phpBB project to allow it to interoperate with SQL Server using Microsoft's SQL Server Driver for PHP, and then worked very closely with members of the phpBB core team to accept our patch contribution. 

The SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1, released in October 2009, provides UTF-8 support, Multiple Active Record Sets (MARS) and the option to leverage SQL Azure and to deploy as a full or partial cloud solution.

Microsoft also worked with the phpBB Core Team to help enable phpBB to leverage the WinCache Extension for PHP. WinCache provides performance benefits for PHP applications on Windows and IIS and is released under the BSD license, with the source hosted and maintained on the PHP Extension Community Library (PECL).

For more information on this news, you can read the Web Platform blog, the SQL Server PHP blog, Josh Holmes' blog, and the phpBB blog.

This release by the phpBB community is another great example of how Microsoft is working with the PHP community to provide higher levels of interoperability and performance as well as providing customers the choice of running the applications they want on the Microsoft Web Platform.

by MichaelF on October 13, 2006 05:57pm

Today we are introducing Cyril Voisin, Security Advisor for Microsoft in France where he has worked for 9 years.  Cyril is a CISSP (Certified Information Security Systems Professional) and along with his work at Microsoft also teaches systems and network security in local schools as time allows.  Cyril has started a blog, primarily focused on security (exact blog intent can be seen here) but occasionally dealing with interoperability as it relates to security.

Cyril has given us permission to syndicate his content on Port 25, the first example is below.  Please feel free to post any questions or clarifications below or on Cyril’s blog.

We welcome Cyril to Port 25 and look forward to featuring his work and insight in the future.

-michael
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How to use Windows Vista’s Boot Manager to boot Linux
The Web is full of explanations on how to dual boot Windows and Linux using a Linux boot manager like GRUB or LILO. If you want to dual boot Windows Vista and Linux using Windows Vista’s Boot Manager, please read on. I will assume that you already have installed Linux on your machine using GRUB as your boot loader.

Step 1 – Install GRUB on the Linux partition (outside of MBR)
As Windows Vista will replace the Master Boot Record (MBR) with its own, we need to relocate GRUB elsewhere by running grub-install with the Linux partition as a parameter.

•On Linux, launch a Terminal with root privileges
•Find the name of the partition Linux is installed on by running fdisk –l (the partition you’re looking for is the one whose system is Linux, can be  something like /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1. For the rest of this post, I’ll use /dev/sda1)
•Install GRUB on the Linux partition by running : grub-install /dev/sda1

Step 2 – Get a copy of Linux boot sector
We will need to instruct Windows Boot Manager how to boot correctly Linux using Linux boot sector, which we will extract using dd.

•On Linux, launch a Terminal with root privileges
•Take a copy of Linux boot sector : dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/tmp/linux.bin bs=512 count=1
•Copy linux.bin on a FAT formatted USB key or any storage accessible from Windows Vista

Step 3 – Install Windows Vista

Step 4 –  Configure dual booting in Windows Vista
We will create an entry for GRUB in Windows Vista boot configuration data store using bcdedit.

•On Windows Vista, launch a command prompt with administrative privileges (by right clicking on cmd and choosing Run as Administrator)
•Copy Linux boot sector on the root of the Windows boot (active) partition, namely the one containing bootmgr. If you don’t know for sure you can use diskpart or diskmgmt.msc to find out which one it is.
•Create an entry for GRUB :
  o   bcdedit /create /d “GRUB” /application BOOTSECTOR
  o   Note: bcdedit will return an ID for this entry that we will call {LinuxID} below. You will need to replace {LinuxID} by the returned identifier in this step. An example of {LinuxID} is {81ed7925-47ee-11db-bd26-cbb4e160eb27}
•Specify which device hosts a copy of the Linux boot sector
  o   bcdedit /set {LinuxID} device boot
•Specify the path to a copy of the Linux boot sector
  o   bcdedit /set {LinuxID}  PATH \linux.bin
•Add Linux entry to the displayed menu at boot time
  o   bcdedit /displayorder {LinuxID} /addlast
•Let the menu be displayed 10 seconds to allow for OS selection
  o   bcdedit /timeout 10

Building a dual boot system with Windows Vista BitLocker protection with TPM support

Many people have wondered if it would be possible to dual boot a TPM-bitlockered instance of Windows Vista with Linux, or another OS. The answer is yes and the following procedure will hopefully help you setup your machine correctly.

Some (simplified) background on Bitlocker:
Bitlocker Drive Encryption allows encryption of Windows Vista’s partition and provides a secure startup process when in use with a TPM (a crypto chip on the motherboard).  Basically the BIOS, the TPM, the MBR and the boot sector will collaborate to help verify that there was no modification to the boot sequence since Bitlocker was activated. This is done by using a function of the TPM to compute and store a hash of the code before executing it, at each of the initial steps of the boot sequence. Different hashes will be computed and stored in specific registers of the TPM. Then Windows Vista will ask the TPM to unseal its volume encryption key and the TPM will only provide this key if its registers are correctly set. Therefore if you replace Windows Vista’s MBR by a MBR that is not TPM aware, it won’t hash the boot sector before executing it and a register in the TPM won’t be populated. Same with the boot sector. Therefore Bitlocker will simply refuse to be enabled.

The underlying idea here is to have Bitlocker enabled with the original Windows Vista boot files. Another possibility would be to use a TPM-aware version of GRUB. However this would imply using files in the boot sequence that were not tested by Microsoft, which I would not recommend. Moreover, using original Windows Vista files offers you the benefits of code that went through the Security Development Lifecycle, which I personally find very valuable.

Note: I assume that you have a Bitlocker compatible machine (including TPM 1.2, TCG BIOS). See http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/library/c61f2a12-8ae6-4957-b031-97b4d762cf31.mspx#BKMK_require

Step 1 – Install Linux
Note:  be sure to leave enough unpartitioned space for Windows Vista: about 11 GB of free unpartitioned space and slots for 2 partitions are needed

Step 2 – Install GRUB on the Linux partition (outside of MBR)
See other post “How to use Windows Vista’s Boot Manager to boot Linux”

Step 3 – Get a copy of Linux boot sector
See other post “How to use Windows Vista’s Boot Manager to boot Linux”

Step 4 – Create partitions for Windows Vista
We need to create 2 primary NTFS formatted partitions on the disk: one active, 1.5GB size minimum and another larger (all the rest for instance with a minimum of 8.5GB). The former will be used to boot the machine (active partition) and will remain unencrypted while the latter will host Windows Vista and will be encrypted when we activate Bitlocker.
You can use diskpart tool to do this (available from Repair options on the Windows Vista DVD). Here is what the instructions may look like :

•  
  • select disk 1
  • create partition primary size=2048
  • active
  • create partition primary

Step 5 - Install Windows Vista
Install Windows Vista on the largest NTFS partition.

Step 6 - Set up Windows Vista Boot Manager to boot Linux
See other post “How to use Windows Vista’s Boot Manager to boot Linux”.

Step 7 - Enable BitLocker on Windows Vista
See BitLocker documentation, like http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/library/c61f2a12-8ae6-4957-b031-97b4d762cf31.mspx#BKMK_S3

by hjanssen on February 28, 2007 06:06pm

When I started working at Microsoft in May of 2006 I wanted to chronicle my adventures here. So my first blog was posted on June 7th 2006 Titled What is a guy like me doing in a place like this, I had every intention writing frequently about my experiences. As you can see, I have not been very consistent with that. Something that I will try to improve in the future.

If you would have told me 1 year ago that I would work at Microsoft I would have laughed. I still walk around looking with amazement at my badge, and when I go to other MS buildings I shake my head when I have to swipe my badge on the reader. When I talk to people I continue to refer to them and us (them being Microsoft, Us being the rest of the world )

I am happy to report that I continue to be the department's skeptic , something I will continue to be.

So I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about a bunch of my experiences since a lot has happened in the last 10 months (more about this later)

First of all, contrary what people believe, I do not know of a greater Microsoft plot to take over the world and destroy Linux and OSS. If there is such a thing, we at our level are unaware of it.   And since this department in many ways is on the front lines working with OSS and Linux, I would have expected to see some evidence.

There is no helicopter pad (not on campus anyway) where Microsoft stores its black helicopters.  There are no dispensers of Microsoft Kool-Aid. (They might have some dispensers in the water coolers though.) And the articles, blogs and posts that I read on what is going on here are most of the time completely off the mark.

Is Microsoft competing with Linux and OSS?? You bet they are. Just like every other company is competing against other companies/people/products that create similar products.

Is Microsoft working to better interface with some of the Linux and OSS products? You bet they are too! We are frequently working on those things as well.

I am not being censored or restricted in any way. I actually have access to a very wide array of things. More so than I thought I would when I started.

The department has a unique position inside of Microsoft. We get to talk to and work with a very wide swath of Microsoft product lines. Just to highlight a typical week that took place a few weeks ago; in the same week I spoke to the Robotics guys, people from the embedded department, People from IIS, SQL server department, the Powershell developers and the cardspace group. And this is a typical week. I am not sure how may other places in Microsoft have the same breadth.

And more and more groups are becoming aware of what we do and contact us to work with us.

Is Microsoft changing?? Yeah, I think it is. In some places it is going very fast, in other places not so much.

Yet if I look back over the last 10 months, I have seen some great changes happen. To name a few:

• My Boss Sam Ramji invited the Mozilla foundation guys out to Redmond to help them get their products to work better inside of Vista. I spent the entire time they where here with them.  It was met with great skeptism, the Slashdot comments ranged from ‘they are hiring the mozzilla folks’ to other helpful hints such as ‘fly on a different planes’.  But I can say that when we send out feelers inside of the company of people would like to talk to them, people at Microsoft where literally lining up to do so.   Read my blog for more on it.
• Microsoft’s announcement of working with Zend to make PHP work better on windows, The department works with the Zend guys to assist them wherever we can.
• We have continued to write and post many technical docs to Port 25, and will of course continue to do so in the future.  We are always looking for topics.
• Sam interviewed Miguel De Icaza and Steve Wozniak and many other people.  
• We continually help other parts of Microsoft when they have any questions about OSS, and help them when they want to Open Source things.  (Powertoys for example)
• The department is working with Novell on implementing the partnership. The interoperability lab that is being talked about with Novell is not smoke and mirrors.
• There are many more items. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to read Port25 for some of the other stuff we have been doing.

But we have been touching a lot of items people never thought a few years ago would be likely. Getting Mozilla people on site for one. Another one that would have been considered impossible is Microsoft writing plugins for Firefox. Here is a cool one for example Photosynth, and you can listen to my podcast in which I interview Ian Gilman one of the Photosynth developers.  Here is a link to the blog metioned in the podcast:  http://labs.live.com/photosynth/blogs/

Just think about that for a second, Microsoft writing Firefox plugins!!!

I will leave you all with a few more observations:

• Microsoft does listen to OSS people. And we do work with those people. More and more all the time. 
• There is still an awful lot of work to be done. Both internally and externally. 
• When the OSSL was created at Microsoft people thought it to be another Microsoft marketing ploy. Well I can tell you that that is certainly not the case here at OSSL. 
• The other guys in the group Sam, Anandeep, Kishi, Michael and Jamie are a blast to work with.

There seems to be a perception that we are not moving fast enough. But I believe we have been able to move at a pretty good speed!  And, there are quite a few more things that we are working on that will show up in the future.

Looking back over the past 10 months I have come to the realization that I am really enjoying the job. There certainly are frustrating times, if you are on the front lines like we seem to be you are likely to get smacked every once and a while. If you are not, than you are not doing your job . But we are seeing noticeable change on all fronts. And it is a blast to be able to work with so many groups inside and outside of Microsoft.

So I will close with the following, I am not drinking the Kool-Aid, quite the opposite; I continue to question everything that is going on inside of Microsoft.  And I will continue to be a voice for Open Source inside of Microsoft.

by Peter Galli on December 09, 2009 12:02pm

I am very pleased to announce that Microsoft today released the Open Sourced Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (WUDT) under the GPLv2.

As we previously explained, the testing and localization took longer than we expected, but the project is now hosted on CodePlex.com, Microsoft's Open Source software project hosting repository, and the code can be found here. 

The tool can also now be downloaded from the Microsoft Store here.

Also, as a result of some necessary changes, while the user experience of the tool will be the same as before, the install involves additional steps.

Originally, for the convenience of customers, we aggregated together additional files, which are separate freestanding executables:

(a) .NET Framework

WUDT is written in C# which requires the Microsoft .NET Framework to run. 

(b) IMAPI

The tool uses IMAPI to burn DVDs.

(c) Bootsect.exe

This is part of the Windows 7 bits (found in \boot\bootsect.exe) and allows a USB device to be marked as bootable.

It is important to note that these files were not linked with the original WUDT in a programmatic sense but, instead, were launched via a command line. We have now separated these files for clarity as they are separate programs under different licensing terms.

The new release will provide full instructions for customers on how to install .NETfx and IMAPI prior to installing WUDT.  Bootsect.exe will be part of the Windows 7 ISO download on the Microsoft Store.

Once again, we appreciate your patience.

In a couple of weeks it will be my one year anniversary here at Microsoft  and  I couldn’t  wish for a better anniversary gift:  now that Microsoft has laid out its roadmap for Big Data, I’m really excited about the role that Apache Hadoop^TM plays in this.

In case you missed it, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ted Kummert earlier today announced that we are adopting Hadoop by announcing plans to deliver enterprise class Apache Hadoop based distributions on both Windows Server and Windows Azure.

This news is loaded with goodies for the big data community, broadening the accessibility and usage of Hadoop-based technologies among developers and IT professionals, by making it available on Windows Server and Windows Azure.  

But there is more. Microsoft will be working with the community to offer contributions for inclusion into the Apache Hadoop project and its ecosystem of tools and technologies.

I believe that all of this will really benefit not only the broader Open Source community  by enabling them to take their existing skill sets and assets use them on Windows Azure and Windows Server, but also developers, our customers and partners. It is also another example of our ongoing commitment to providing Interoperability, compatibility and flexibility.

As a proud member of the Apache Software Foundation, I personally could not be happier to see how Microsoft is willing to engage in such an important Open Source project and community.

Technical Considerations

On the more technical front, we have been working on a simplified download, installation and configuration experience of several Hadoop related technologies, including HDFS, Hive, and Pig, which will help broaden the adoption of Hadoop in the enterprise.

The Hadoop based service for Windows Azure will allow any developer or user to submit and run standard Hadoop jobs directly on the Azure cloud with a simple user experience.

Let me stress this once again: it doesn’t matter what platform you are developing your Hadoop jobs on -you will always be able to take a standard Hadoop job and deploy it on our platform, as we strive towards full interoperability with the official Apache Hadoop distribution.

This is great news as it lowers the barrier for building Hadoop based applications while encouraging rapid prototyping scenarios in the Windows Azure cloud for Big Data.

To facilitate all of this, we have also entered into a strategic partnership with Hortonworks that enables us to gain unique experience and expertise to help accelerate the delivery of Microsoft’s Hadoop based distributions on both Windows Server and Windows Azure.

For developers, we will enable integration with Microsoft developer tools as well as invest in making Javascript a first class language for Big Data. We will do this by making it possible to write high performance Map/Reduce jobs using Javascript. Yes, Javascript Map/Reduce, you read it right.

For end users, the Hadoop-based applications targeting the Windows Server and Windows Azure platforms will easily work with Microsoft’s existing BI tools like PowerPivot and recently announced Power View, enabling self-service analysis on business information that was not previously accessible. To enable this we will be delivering an ODBC Driver and an Add-in for Excel, each of which will interoperate with Apache Hive. 

Finally, in line with our commitment to Interoperability and to facilitate the high performance bi-directional movement of enterprise data between Apache Hadoop and Microsoft SQL Server, we have released two Hadoop-based connectors for SQL Server to manufacturing.

The SQL Server connector for Apache Hadoop lets customers move large volumes of data between Hadoop and SQL Server 2008 R2, while the SQL Server PDW connector for Apache Hadoop moves data between Hadoop and SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW). These new connectors will enable customers to work effectively with both structured and unstructured data.

I really look forward to sharing updates on all this as we move forward. For now, check out www.microsoft.com/bigdata and check back on the DPI blog tomorrow.

Gianugo

by MichaelF on April 10, 2007 04:05pm

In cases where business applications have been built on open source databases, it may be necessary to connect other Windows applications, such as Microsoft Access or Excel, to these databases for reporting or business intelligence purposes.

One potential application of this process is to use Excel as a front-end for data analysis.  Data can be pulled from views or tables and then further analyzed, graphed, and the like.  Even pivot tables can be used to create even more powerful reporting solutions.

This how-to walks through this process using Excel as an example application.  Although in this example, the MySQL and PostgreSQL servers are running on Linux, the steps are no different if the software is running on Windows.  These steps are:

1.         Setting up authentication
2.         Installing the ODBC Drivers
3.         Configuring the data source
4.         Importing the data.

Attachment: excerpt_linux_in_a_windows_world.pdf

by Sam Ramji on March 19, 2008 02:22pm

I’m writing this from EclipseCon in Santa Clara, California, where I’m going to announce the beginning of Microsoft’s collaborative work with the Eclipse Foundation.

This started about a year ago when I met Mike Milinkovich at an open source event (the Open Source Software Think Tank 2007) where we were seated at the same table, and assigned to discuss “key issues inhibiting the growth of open source”. We found we had pretty similar ways of looking at problems – I found Mike to be very pragmatic and straightforward in his thinking. That discussion led to a conversation about what we could do to help Eclipse developers building software for Windows.

At the same time, the CardSpace team at Microsoft was already working actively with the Higgins Project to establish a secure, interoperable framework for user identity on the web – an architecture known as the Identity Metasystem. Since the inception of Higgins, the CardSpace team has worked very closely with the Higgins team, providing them the protocol documentation they needed to be able to build an identity selector that is interoperable with CardSpace, as well as placing those protocol specifications under the OSP so that they knew that it was safe to do so. We share a commitment to building a user-centric, privacy-preserving, secure, easy-to-use identity layer for the Internet.

Currently, Higgins, Microsoft, and dozens of other companies and projects are in the midst of the third OSIS-sponsored user-centric identity interop, where we all try our code together, providing the data needed to improve both our implementations and the interoperability between them.

Among a range of other opportunities (which we’re still working on), we discovered that Steve Northover (the SWT team lead) had gotten requests to make it easy for Java developers to write applications that look and feel like native Windows Vista. He and a small group of developers built out a prototype that enables SWT to use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). We’re committing to improve this technology with direct support from our engineering teams and the Open Source Software Lab, with the goal of a first-class authoring experience for Java developers.

This is exciting to me – as a Java developer in my prior life (as well as the first technical marketing manager for BEA’s WebLogic Workshop, now Apache Beehive) it just makes sense to enable Java on Windows. We started a collaborative effort with JBoss two years ago that continues to this day. At the end of the day, it’s all about the developer. There will be more to come from the conversations that Eclipse and Microsoft have begun, and I look forward to announcing those in the future as we have demonstrable technology results.

Cheers,
Sam

by Peter Galli on November 13, 2009 11:24am

As you've likely read and as was originally reported here, we've been investigating a report that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, might contain GPLv2 code.  The WUDT is a free tool that was offered by the Microsoft Store and which enabled customers to create bootable USB drives or DVD backup media from the electronic software (ESD) edition of Windows 7 that comes in an ISO format.

After looking at the code in question, we are now able to confirm this was indeed the case, although it was not intentional on our part. While we had contracted with a third party to create the tool, we share responsibility as we did not catch it as part of our code review process. We have furthermore conducted a review of other code provided through the  Microsoft Store and this was the only incident of this sort we could find.

When it comes to our attention that a Microsoft component contains third party code, our aim is to be respectful of the terms under which that code is being shared. As a result, we will be making the source code as well as binaries for this tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2 as described here, and are also taking measures to apply what we have learned from this experience for future code reviews we perform. 

We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this has caused.

This post was updated to include the link to the original article.

by Peter Galli on November 16, 2009 09:16am

I have great news to announce. Today, at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) here in Los Angeles, we announced not only the release of version 4.0 of  the.NET Micro Framework, but also that we are open sourcing the product and making it available under the Apache 2.0 license, which is already being used by the community within the embedded space.

The .NET Micro Framework,a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices, was initially developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator, but recently moved to the Developer Division so as to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts.

The result of this is that the .NET Micro Framework has become a seamless development experience, bringing a single programming model and tool chain for the breadth of developer solutions, all the way from small intelligent devices, to servers and the cloud. There are also no more time-limited versions.

Including the source code for almost all of the product also ensures that developers now also get access to the Base Class Libraries that were implemented for .NET Micro Framework and the CLR code itself.

However, both the TCP/IP stack and Cryptography libraries are not included in the source code. Program Manager Colin Miller told me this was because the TCP/IP stack is third party software that Microsoft licenses from EBSNet, so we do not have the rights to distribute that source code. If someone needs to access the source code for the TCP/IP stack, they can contact EBSNet directly. 

As for the Cyptography libraries, they are not included in source code because they are used outside of the scope of the .NET Micro Framework.  Customers who need to have access to the code in the cryptography functions will find that these libraries can be replaced, Miller said.

I asked Miller what the future plans for the .Net Micro Framework were, and he made clear that Microsoft intends to remain actively involved in its ongoing development, working alongside the community. While the license will allow customers to take the code and make specialized versions to fit their needs, customers told us they wanted Microsoft to stay involved to avoid any possible fragmentation of the platform.

"As such, we are planning on establishing a core technology team that is made up of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft contributors that continues the goals of producing a high quality product for very small devices. This group will act as the gateway to community contributions while, at the same time, Microsoft Developers will continue add functionality and coordinate with the overall .NET team," he said.

Microsoft is also in the process of forming a community of interested and involved members to help shape the future direction of the product. There will be a core technology team that is composed of Microsoft and external partners, and people will be encouraged to propose projects, which will be vetted before they are accepted.

"The site will also support people building extensions that exist alongside the platform rather than being integrated into it, " Miller told me.

by Peter Galli on January 27, 2011 07:00am

Last fall Microsoft hired Gianugo Rabellino, a Vice President of the Apache XML Project Management Committee and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sourcesense, as Senior Director of Open Source Communities.

Earlier this week Gianugo participated in a roundtable discussion filmed for Channel 9 that also includes Stephen Walli, Technical Director for the Outercurve Foundation, and Garrett Serack, an Open Source developer here at Microsoft.

Gianugo has a deep understanding of open source technologies and platforms, and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to a group of passionate and committed individuals who share his same enthusiasm for interoperability and openness between Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms.

With the work to deepen interoperability across open source solutions prevalent across Microsoft and, as the go-to guy at Microsoft for all things related to open Source Communities, Gianugo is headed to Europe to meet with folk from the field and communities on a "listen and learn" trip, which he explains further in the video.

As Microsoft’s Senior Director of Open Source Communities, I couldn’t be happier to share with you today an update on a wide range of Open Source developments on Windows Azure.

As we continue to provide incremental improvements to Windows Azure, we remain committed to working with developer communities. We’ve spent a lot of time listening, and we have heard you loud and clear.

We understand that there are many different technologies that developers may want to use to build applications in the cloud. Developers want to use the tools that best fit their experience, skills, and application requirements, and our goal is to enable that choice.

In keeping with that goal, we are extremely happy to be delivering new and improved experiences for Node.js, MongoDB, Hadoop, Solr and Memcached on Windows Azure.

This delivers on our ongoing commitment to provide an experience where developers can build applications on Windows Azure using the languages and frameworks they already know, enable greater customer flexibility for managing and scaling databases, and making it easier for customers to get started and use cloud computing on their terms with Windows Azure.

Here are the highlights of today’s announcements:

• We are releasing the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js as open source, available immediately on Github. These libraries are the perfect complement to our recently announced contributions to Node.js and provide a better Node.js experience on Windows Azure. Head to the Windows Azure Developer Center for documentation, tutorial, samples and how-to guides to get you started with Node.js on Windows Azure.
• We will also be delivering the Node package manager for Windows (npm) code to allow use of npm on Windows for simpler and faster Node.js configuration and development. Windows developers can now use NPM to install Node modules and take advantage of its automated handling of module dependencies and other details.
• To build on our recent announcement about Apache Hadoop, we are making available a limited preview of the Apache Hadoop based distribution service on Windows Azure.  This enables Hadoop apps to be deployed in hours instead of days, and includes Hadoop Javascript libraries and powerful insights on data through the ODBC driver and Excel plugin for Hive. Read more about this on the Windows Azure team blog. If you are interested in trying this preview, please complete the form here with details of your Big Data scenario.  Microsoft will issue an access code to select customers based on usage scenarios.
• For all of you NoSQL fans, we have been working closely with 10Gen and the MongoDB community in the past few months, and if you were at at MongoSV last week you have already seen MongoDB running on Windows Azure. Head out to the 10Gen website to find downloads, documentation and other document-oriented goodies. If you’re using the popular combination of Node.js and MongoDB, a simple straightforward install process will get you started on Windows Azure. Learn more here.
• For Java developers, take a look at the updated Java support, including a new and revamped Eclipse plugin. The new features are too many to list for this post, but you can count on a much better experience thanks to new and exciting functionality such as support for sticky sessions and configuration of remote Java debugging. Head over to the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more.
• Does your application need advanced search capabilities? If so, the chances are you either use or are evaluating Solr, and so the good news for you is that we just released a set of code tools and configuration guidelines to get the most out of Solr running on Windows Azure.
• We invite developers to try out the tools, configuration and sample code for Solr tuned for searching commercial and publisher sites. The published guidance showcases how to configure and host Solr/Lucene in Windows Azure using multi-instance replication for index-serving and single-instance for index generation with a persistent index mounted in Windows Azure storage.
• * Another great example of OSS on Windows Azure is the use of Memcached server, the popular open-source caching technology, to improve the performance of dynamic web applications. Maarten Balliauw recently blogged about his MemcacheScaffolder, which simplifies management of Memcached servers on the Windows Azure platform. That blog post is only focused on PHP, but the same approach can be used by other languages supported by Memcached as well.
• Scaling data in the Cloud is very important. Today, the SQL Azure team made SQL Azure Federation available.  This new feature provides built-in support for data sharding (horizontal partitioning of data) to elastically scale-out data in the cloud. I am thrilled to announce that concurrent with the release of this new feature, we have released a new specification called SQL Database Federations, which describes additional SQL capabilities that enable data sharding (horizontal partitioning of data) for scalability in the cloud, under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise. With those additional SQL capabilities, the database tier can provide built-in support for data sharding to elastically scale-out data in the cloud, as covered in Ram Jeyaraman’s post on this blog.

In addition to all this great news, the Windows Azure experience has also been significantly improved and streamlined. This includes simplified subscription management and billing, a guaranteed free 90-day trial with quick sign-up process, reduced prices, improved database scale and management, and more. Please see the Windows Azure team blog post for insight on all the great news.

As we enter the holiday season, I’m happy to see Windows Azure continuing on its roadmap of embracing OSS tools developers know and love, by working collaboratively with the open source community to build together a better cloud that supports all developers and their need for interoperable solutions based on developer choice.

In conclusion, I just want to stress that we intend to keep listening, so please send us your feedback. Rest assured we’ll take note!

Today Bill Laing, Corporate VP for Server and Cloud, announced a very important set of Windows Azure updates. With these new updates, Windows Azure is more than ever an open and easy platform to build and run applications in the cloud, and the place to be for developers who want to have choice and flexibility.

I am proud to say that Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. has been working closely with the Windows Azure team and it has been a great journey together, exploring openness and taking interoperability to a new level. There is too much news in this release to cover in a single blog post, and I strongly suggest everyone attend the Meet Windows Azure event tomorrow, when Scott Guthrie and many others will provide a lot of additional information. At the same time, I would like to spend the next few paragraphs on some of the many facets of openness in Windows Azure, to further demonstrate how Windows Azure is living in interesting and exciting times.

Services and Partnerships

For one, I have to point out how all-encompassing the Windows Azure platform is becoming. We will talk in a minute about the support for IaaS, but I would like to draw your attention to how the Windows Azure platform has now announced a set of partnerships that will provide very compelling data services such as MySQL, CouchDB, and Apache Solr.

Those services can be enjoyed by PaaS and IaaS developers and come from the leading industry experts in the field: Microsoft is partnering with leading companies such as Cleardb, Cloudant and Lucid Imagination to provide true data-as-a-service and enable developers and customers to build applications at scale without the worry of provisioning and maintaining their databases. At the same time we and our partners addressed the needs of those who prefer to run software independently in their own PaaS and/or IaaS instances, providing easy installation packages of Windows Azure-optimized versions of Apache CouchDB and Apache Solr. Last but not least, we worked with 10gen to improve the installation experience of MongoDB on Windows Azure that was originally announced in December, and we are looking forward to building a great experience for Windows Azure MongoDB users. 

More importantly, both Microsoft and our partners are committed to always maintain full compatibility with the underlying Open Source applications so that our customers can always rest assured their data will work everywhere. With these technologies joining the existing pool of Windows Azure SQL Database and Apache Hadoop, Windows Azure is leading by leaps and bounds when it comes to data.

OSS on Windows Azure

If Windows Azure databases are now a few clicks away, applications are far from being out in the cold. The announcement of Windows Azure Web Sites - a hosting framework for Web apps that will work across both Windows Azure and private-cloud datacenters - unveils amazing opportunities to run popular Open Source applications in Windows Azure: be it WordPress or Drupal, Joomla or Umbraco, DotNetNuke or PHPBB, or one of the many apps in the Web Sites gallery, it has never been easier to deploy applications on the Windows Azure platform. And I can’t wait for developers to try the new releases of the Windows Azure open source SDKs (now including Python in addition to .NET, Java, PHP and Node.js) as well as the integration with Git.

We are also releasing a major update to the Windows Azure Plugin for Eclipse with Java (by Microsoft Open Technologies that includes a number of user feedback-driven improvements. Among them is a significantly revamped deployment experience contributed by GigaSpaces Technologies Ltd, an established leader in helping enterprises move their Java applications to the cloud, who has recently joined in the development work behind the plugin. Their impressive “publish to cloud” wizard makes it much easier for Windows Azure developers working with Java to deploy their projects to the Windows Azure cloud directly from Eclipse. Read the more detailed blog post from Martin Sawicki that covers the Eclipse plugin in more detail.

Last but not least, you probably have noticed the upcoming support for IaaS, Virtual Machines and Linux. I believe this move demonstrates how Windows Azure is built around what customers are asking for and with the idea of being the most inclusive platform ever. Customers are demanding high degrees of flexibility and want to be able to run every possible scenario in a seamless fashion: there are very interesting examples of hybrid private/public clouds out there, not to mention a number of creative contaminations of IaaS, PaaS and data services. We are most definitely moving away from monolithic architectures – customers and developers today want and deserve flexibility.

Linux on Windows Azure

Enabling use of Linux on Windows Azure is a key piece of the puzzle, and needs to be as easy as possible. As with data services, it’s all about strong partnerships with industry leaders: this is why you are seeing Windows Azure partnering with major Linux publishers to provide an amazing experience, and I’m sure this will be a very exciting and ongoing story. On top of that I have to note how partners like BitRock are doing very interesting work to provide more choice: two initial Linux images are available for Bitnami, and we look forward to extending the catalog much further.

Allow me to make a final example of openness and talk about the Windows Azure Command Line Tools for Mac and Linux (the ones Windows Azure users will run on local machines to deploy and manage their Windows and Linux virtual machines): not only they are Open Source, but they are available right now for Mac and Linux clients. And this is just the beginning – stay tuned for more exciting news.

Openness and Interoperability

When a journey reaches an important milestone it’s good to look back and think about the road so far: in my case I went as far as two years ago, when we shared our view on Interoperability Elements of a Cloud Platform. Back then we talked to customers and developers and came out with an overview of an open and interoperable cloud, based on four distinct elements: data portability, standards, ease of migration & deployment and developer choice. We have been laser focused on the quest for an interoperable and flexible cloud platform that would enable heterogeneous workloads, and it’s really rewarding to see how today’s announcement maps nicely to the vision that we outlined back then. More precisely:

• A lot of efforts have been spent on data portability with great results. Allow me to remind you how on Windows Azure your data is either a JSON/XML call away or in any case available through open interfaces (think of JDBC/ODBC support for SQL Database, as an example). Working on open interfaces really pays off when I think of how our partners have been able to build data solutions (MySQL, Hadoop, Solr, CouchDB, MongoDB) that can run either as a service or as independent workloads. Our customer own their data, and this is near and dear to our hearts.
• When it comes to standards Windows Azure has one of the most complete API layers around, exposed as REST, XML, OData, Atompub, JSON and others. We are working with standard bodies such as IETF, OASIS and DMTF to ensure that important topics such as identity and management in the cloud are exposed as standard-based APIs, and we have been proactive proponents of important standard efforts such as AMQP and OData among others.
• Ease of migration & deployment is a key factor when building a cloud platform that preserves existing investments and enables co-existence between on-premise software and cloud services. I see a lot of progress in this area, as an example when I think of the work we have been doing to provide our Java customers and developers with a much improved Eclipse experience, while at the same time providing to everyone the flexibility of FTP and Git to deploy and manage applications. Windows Azure Web Sites is also a great example of how easy deployment can be in the cloud, putting your favorite applications (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, PHPBB and many others) just one click away. While at it, you may want to check out our step-by-step instructions for running Magento.
• And finally, developer choice, defined as the possibility to use a variety of development tools, runtime and languages. Here we have five SDKs layered on top of a standard APIs, covering .NET, Java, PHP, Python and Node.js. We support the widest possible variety of workloads: be it PaaS or IaaS, be it Windows or Linux, be it public, private or hybrid. We are working with Open Source communities and with leading vendors to provide the best of breed in applications and data services. No matter what your workload is, Windows Azure will be a great home for it.

I have broken every promise I made to myself to keep this post short, yet I barely managed to scratch the surface of this announcement. I have in front of me the plan for the upcoming weeks and I know it will be busy times for this and many other blogs in Microsoft as there is so much to share. It will all start tomorrow at the Meet Windows Azure event: be there!

by anandeep on January 18, 2007 02:15pm

Prof Stephen R. (Steve) Schach is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering at the Vanderbilt University.

Port 25 met up with him while he was visiting Seattle, Washington in picturesque Kirkland, Washington on the shores of Lake Washington.

Steve (he hates being called Prof Schach!)  believes in gathering data to make predictions.  While he accepts that there may be interpretations of data he thinks gathering the correct data is paramount.

He credits Open Source Software with kick starting the Empirical Software Engineering movement saying “We could count the number of lines of code in gcc and Linux – we couldn’t do that with Windows 95!”.

In this interview we discussed empirical software engineer/computer science and some of the work Steve has been doing. This includes his work on the proportion of time that code is in bug fixing mode and his work on global variables in Linux.

The latter work was found to be controversial by the Open Source Community.  Steve thought that all he was doing was counting the number of global variable in Linux vs BSD and stating that Linux had far more than is considered wise! This was surprising to Steve, but isn’t that much of a surprise to the people who know how much passion Open Source can generate!

Steve’s website is here http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~srs/  and you can find his publications on his website.

Attachment: http://port25.technet.com/videos/podcasts/schach.mp3