One on one with Shaun Walker, DotNetNuke

Shaun Walker is co-founder and CTO at open source web content management vendor DotNetNuke. Walker developed the original version of DotNetNuke, which is built on the Microsoft .NET platform. We asked him about managing an open source product while staying commercially viable.

FCM: It seems unusual to have an open source product built on top of a Microsoft platform. How did you decide to go with .NET and to go the open source route?

SW: Since the mid-1990s I had been working professionally as a Microsoft solutions architect. When the .NET platform became available in 2001, I recognized that it was a game changing move by Microsoft and that in order to stay relevant, I would need to quickly become an expert with this new software development model. I have always preferred a hands-on approach to new technology, so in my spare time I started building a .NET software application which would eventually evolve into the DotNetNuke Web Content Management Platform. The decision to release the product under an Open Source license was partly based on financial and personal constraints I was operating under at the time, and partly based on the desire to share innovative technology with the Microsoft developer community. Releasing the original product on December 24, 2002 (Christmas Eve) was symbolic in terms of cultivating a vibrant community ecosystem.

FCM: You have three versions of your software. What is the goal of this model?

SW: Different versions of our software cater to different demographics of users. The free Community Edition contains a general feature set adaptable to a broad range of use cases, including both commercial and non-commercial applications. The Professional Edition includes expert technical support from our experienced engineers, as well as some exclusive features more applicable to serious business environments. Our newest version is the Enterprise Edition, which caters to the needs of enterprise organizations who have more sophisticated infrastructure and IT governance requirements.

FCM: Does the free version have all of the same features as the pay ones?

SW: The free Community Edition is built on the same robust core architecture and APIs as our commercial editions. That said, in order to satisfy the needs of our more serious users, we do include some advanced features in our commercial editions. These features include items more applicable to mission critical environments where management, security and performance have greater significance. Examples include workflow and content approval, support for web farms, page output caching and granular content management permissions.

FCM: How is your community of users involved in the maintenance of your products?

SW: With 800,000 users registered on our website and more than 6 million downloads of our product to date, we have a very large vocal user community. And because our product is both a web content management system and a web application framework, we regularly receive feedback from both non-technical users and highly technical developers and designers. In order to encourage and promote a high level of community involvement, we provide a number of key communication channels where members can directly engage with us. These include our discussion forums, blog, wiki, issue tracker, roadmap and public source code repository. In addition to direct communication, we also benefit from passionate open source developers who provide code contributions to improve the overall quality and richness of our products.

FCM: In your most recent upgrade you added content staging and localization. How does your company set the product upgrade roadmap?

SW: When it comes to managing the future product roadmap, we constantly monitor and aggregate the feedback we receive from stakeholders in various communication channels. In general, we prioritize feature requests based on the size and prevalence of the problem which they are designed to solve. Essentially, this means that we try to focus the majority of our time and energy solving significant business problems that affect the largest portion of our user base. In addition, one of the core values we have adhered to since the inception of the project is to always provide a seamless upgrade path to new versions of the product. This enables a smooth migration and provides assurance in regards to the investment in our platform.

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