Oxite News & Articles

It was only yesterday that we gave you the goods on the new open source content management project named Orchard (news, site). But we didn't know everything we wanted to know. So we reached out to Bertrand Le Roy, Program Manager for the Orchard project. Here's what he told us.

So the truth is, Orchard is not Microsoft's newest dive into the world the open source content management. At least not officially. When the project is run by a group of Microsoft employees, you can't help but wonder what, if any, role Microsoft might have behind the scenes.

Word about the new ASP.NET based open source Web CMS appeared only last week and now the details have arrived on CodePlex.

Microsoft has a secret, although it's not completely secret. They are getting ready to offer a new open source content management application code named Orchard.

The project, which will be discussed at next week's TechEd Europe, is a "new effort to produce free, open source, reusable components and a full-featured CMS application built on these components to produce a variety of different types of web sites."

It's hard to tell from the session description if this project is already well underway or just getting kicked off at the conference. The session includes an interactive discussion that allows developers to get "in on the ground floor".

ZDNet's Mary Joe Foley tried to get more details from Microsoft, but they remain mum on the subject, even ignoring the question of whether Orchard is just a new name for Oxite, the open source Web CMS Microsoft announced back in December last year.

As Foley suggests, the timing is just right for Orchard as it could become one of the first projects announced for the new CodePlex Foundation. The Foundation, which has been established to "enable the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities", has released the first working draft of its Project Acceptance and Operation Guidelines.

Microsoft is fairly good at keeping secrets, so we may just have to wait until November 11, when the TechEd Europe Session happens, to get all the details on Project Orchard. As soon as we get the goods, we'll pass them on to you.

You aren't interested in SharePoint, so our piece on 7 Must Read Articles for SharePoint didn't tickle your fancy. Instead, you spend your time in the world of open source.

Fortunately for you, so do we. At a time of tight budgets and whispers of interoperability are everywhere, open source is something you can't ignore. Whether your interest is Joomla!, Drupal, XOOPs, Alfresco or one of the many other open source content management systems available, we have the information to guide you on your path.

Here are five must read articles on Open Source Content Management Systems.

Yes, Microsoft has SharePoint. And it's the most talked about and controversial content management system out there today. Everyone seems to have it. Many actually use it.

But having SharePoint isn't enough. The company has just announced an open source web content managment platform (or blogging engine depending on how you slice these things) called Oxite. This new bundle of .NET code may be designed to take on the likes of WordPress, but will it do more than create a small sputter?