Worldwide popularity of DotNetNuke enables new organization to pursue wide range of opportunities to benefit the community
Seattle, Wash. — September 21, 2006 — DotNetNuke®, the popular Open Source web application framework for the ASP.Net platform, today announced the formation of DotNetNuke Corporation, a new company to serve the growing needs of the project and its ever-expanding community. The new entity will focus on the management of the project, while leveraging a wide array of resources to create and distribute a superior, free, Open Source web application framework that cultivates a passionate developer community and a prosperous commercial ecosystem.
“The formation of this company reflects the maturity of the DotNetNuke project,” said Shaun Walker, founder of DotNetNuke Corp. “As the adoption rate of DotNetNuke continues to grow, it is increasingly being used as a platform for mission-critical websites and web applications. DotNetNuke Corp. exists to instill confidence that while the project continues to remain true to its Open Source ideals, it will also be backed by a company that is focused on providing professional management and stewardship for the project.”
Perpetual Motion Interactive Systems, Inc., Walker’s British Columbia, Canada-based company that currently manages the DotNetNuke® project and its intellectual property including trademarks, will transfer these assets to DotNetNuke Corp., which will be based in Seattle, Washington, Walker said. The new company will maintain the primary authority for managing the Open Source project, stewarding and distributing the source code, setting policies, managing intellectual property, and organizing the relationships between all participants in the project.
“DotNetNuke Corporation is not a typical commercial entity,” Walker added. “Rather, it is dedicated to the public benefit goal at the heart of the DotNetNuke project, which is to create opportunities and spread entrepreneurship to the world by providing a superior Open Source web application framework."
The project continues to be successful in achieving this goal. In the four years since the DotNetNuke project was launched, it has seen its registered user ranks swell to 335,000 members and demand for its flagship product surpassing 2 million downloads worldwide. This worldwide adoption of DotNetNuke has created significant economic value both for the project and also the commercial ecosystem that it has spawned.
“This economic value is an unintended but real by-product of the DotNetNuke project's overarching mission to create opportunities and spread entrepreneurship to the world,” Walker said. “Carefully managed, this value — and the resulting ability to generate revenue — can be used to make the DotNetNuke project self-sustaining and help keep the community open and diverse.”
In addition to spearheading the Open Source project, DotNetNuke Corp. will also focus on developing and delivering services which support the ecosystem, including marketing, sponsorships, and a wide range of partner-related activities. These activities are expected to generate revenue, but the company intends to focus on those opportunities that are consistent with the community values and public goals of the project, Walker said. This includes providing funding for aspects of the project that are difficult or challenging for volunteer teams to solely undertake such as professional marketing, large-scale platform and feature development, product certification and ecommerce initiatives, he added.
“Overall, the operation of the DotNetNuke project will remain unchanged,” Walker said. “Participants in the DotNetNuke project will not experience any difference in the way the DotNetNuke application is developed, licensed or distributed. As DotNetNuke Corp. adds resources in those areas that are currently lacking, we expect to see improvements that will have an overall positive impact on the project,” Walker said.
The current members of the DotNetNuke project management board – Joe Brinkman, Nik Kalyani and Scott Willhite – will join Walker as co-founders of the new company.
About DotNetNuke®
“Our mission is to create opportunities and spread entrepreneurship to the world by providing a superior open source web application framework which cultivates a passionate developer community as well as a prosperous commercial ecosystem.” DotNetNuke® is an open source web application framework ideal for creating, deploying and managing interactive web, intranet and extranet sites. With a rapidly growing community of over 300,000 registered users, a legion of dedicated professional developers, and an active commercial ecosystem, DotNetNuke® continues to strengthen its leadership position in the Microsoft enterprise market.
About Open Source
The basic idea behind Open Source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, and people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.