OpenForce 2009 Recap
Well, it has been a very busy week, but we can now record another OpenForce event in the books. I'm sitting here still in Las Vegas going over various notes regarding various announcements that have occurred through the week and though it would be good to make a blog post with a few "highlights" as I see them from the week. So, without future delay, here are my favorite highlights from the week, in no particular order!
Telerik Controls to Ship with DNN CE and PE
During the keynote address Shaun Walker announced that the Telerik ASP.NET controls will be distributed as part of the next DotNetNuke release. To me this is a very major milestone, as being a regular user of the Telerik controls for my regular ASP.NET development activities I would enjoy a streamlined way of being able to use them within DotNetNuke, removing the risk of dll conflicts.
Based on future discussions it is important to note that the MOST CURRENT release of Telerik will be included, and that developers looking to program against the dlls must have a valid license to the Telerik controls. I'm sure that more information will be coming as we get the 5.2.x releases of DotNetNuke out the door.
DotNetNuke 5.2 to Release Next Week
In addition to the Telerik announcement Shaun noted that DotNetNuke 5.2 will be released next week, this release contains the Telerik controls and other new additions to the core. I want to make a special reminder to everyone that this release is also the first to REQUIRE .NET 3.5 to run successfully!!!
Additional DotNetNuke Corporation Employees
Although I am not sure if this was announced at OpenForce specifically it is important to note that last week Joe Brinkman blogged about Additional New Hires for DotNetNuke Corporation. These two new hires are individuals that are well known to many of us, Philip Beadle and Alex Shirley, two great additions to the team. Congrats to both DotNetNuke and each of the individuals on their new roles!
DotNetNuke "Express" Edition
Another announcement from the keynote was yet another "edition" of DotNetNuke. This "express" edition is essentially a limited support only version of the Community Edition. No new extensions or functionality will be provided simply additional services, including 2 yearly support incidents. Expect more information to come from DotNetNuke corporation as this edition is released in the upcoming months.
DotNetNuke Peer Esteem Grant
Another announcement of the week was the creation of the DotNetNuke Peer Esteem Grant (PEG) program. This information was released in detail via a blog posting by Scott W. This program is a very nice initiative supported by the founders and rest of DotNetNuke corporation to give something back to those that have made notable contributions to the community.
I am proud to say that I am one of the 20 PEG awardees, and am highly honored to be a part of the award group.
DotNetNuke PE License Information
One of the biggest, recurring questions of the week was around the license model for DotNetNuke Professional edition, so I thought I would make a short post about it here as well. The key items that were identified in discussions are as follows.
License Cost Is Per Production DNN Instance
One big question was how did licensing work in Web-Farm environments, it was confirmed, multiple times that when working with a web-farm, individual licenses are needed for EACH instance of DNN on each server. So a single DNN installation that is balanced across two web servers would require two licenses, or two DNN Installations balanced across two web servers would require four licenses, etc.
License Is Yearly - Nag Notice Admin Only
The second common question was regarding what happened at the end of the year, if the license was not renewed. It was noted that in 5.2.x and later versions of DotNetNuke that the "unlicensed" notification would be displayed on "Admin Only" views and that functionality would not be limited. It was noted though that use, after the expiration of the license was essentially running unlicensed software.
Overall Summary
Overall it was a great week, I enjoyed the opportunity to meet with many members of the community. A lot of great information was shared in sessions, after-session discussions, and during various evening events. This posting tries to give a bit of insight and re-cap to the weeks activities, but is in no way a comprehensive list. Be sure to check out the various community blogs and share anything extra that you would like to add below!
Posted by Mitchel on Sunday, November 15, 2009
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