Professional DotNetNuke®5: Open Source Web Application Framework for ASP.NET

Chapter 1. An Inside Look at the Evolution of DotNetNuke

Project Creator and Chief Architect

—By Shaun Walker

As much as DotNetNuke is an open source software application written for the Microsoft ASP.NET platform, it is also a vibrant community with developers, end users, vendors, and volunteers—all working together collaboratively in a rich and diverse ecosystem. This chapter attempts to capture the essence of the project, expose its humble beginnings, provide insight into its evolution, and document its many achievements, but not shy away from some of the hard lessons learned in the process. The lifeblood of any community is its people; therefore, it is a distinct honor and privilege to be able to share some of the emotion and passion that has gone into the DotNetNuke project so that you may be able to establish a personal connection with the various stakeholders and perhaps precipitate your own decision to join this burgeoning ecosystem.

In 2001–2002, I was working for a medium-sized software consulting company that was providing outsourced software development services to a variety of large U.S. clients specializing primarily in e-Learning initiatives. The internal push was to achieve CMM 3.0 on a fairly aggressive schedule so that we could compete with the emerging outsourcing powerhouses from India and China. As a result there was an incredible amount of focus on process and procedure and somewhat less focus on the technical aspects of software engineering. Because the majority ...