Microsoft launches open-source blogging platform

On Monday, Microsoft launched Oxite, an open-source blogging platform.

However, the software maker was quick to underline that the product is aimed at developers and not intended to directly compete with popular blogging software such as WordPress or Movable Type.

Microsoft posted the Oxite code on its CodePlex Web site on Friday and made an official announcement on Monday. The software, described as an alpha release, is available under the Microsoft Public License, one of Microsoft's OSI-certified open-source licenses.

Oxite is a standards-compliant, extensible content-management system designed to support either blogs or larger Web sites, Microsoft said. The platform includes support for features such as pingbacks, trackbacks, anonymous or authenticated commenting, gravatars (globally recognized avatars), and RSS feeds at any page level, the company said.

Users can create and edit a set of pages on a site, add customized HTML into pages, and support multiple blogs on a single site.

Oxite is also able to integrate with Microsoft developer software such as ASP.Net MVC, Visual Studio Team Suite, and Background Services Architecture. The project began as a way of demonstrating the capabilities of ASP.Net MVC to developers, Microsoft said.

The Web site for Mix Online was built using Oxite, and Microsoft is providing the Mix Online Web site code for developers to learn from. Mix Online is the online community centered on Microsoft's Mix Web developer conference.

Oxite is not a direct competitor to existing, established blogging systems, nor is it intended to challenge Microsoft's own SharePoint, which includes content-management-system capabilities, according to Oxite project coordinator Erik Porter.

The software is intended for developers but could eventually be made suitable for the general public, Porter wrote in an Oxite discussion forum.

"We have no plans to make this anything but a really good developer sample that should be able to run any site you want," he wrote. "That said, this is a community project now and, if the community decides to take it a different direction, we won't stop it."

Matthew Broersma of ZDNet.co.uk reported from London.

[Universal_Indie_Records]

You have to admire Mircosoft's "jack of all trades, master of none" approach to things. Browsers, video games, mp3 players, search, maps, social networking, etc. "Let's see what everyone else is doing and throw a ton of money at it.". Is this the best Microsoft's R&D can do?

[goodspeed8701]

Can you list out what you want them to do for you.

[Penguinisto]

I can - how about concentrating on the OS and Office suites, instead of watching at least one of them (the OS) rot and bloat due to corporate inattention?

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto wrote:

"I can - how about concentrating on the OS and Office suites, instead of watching at least one of them (the OS) rot and bloat due to corporate inattention? "

Excellent point! However it's one that Apple and Red Hat are equally guilty of. I'm afraid Microsoft has no monopoly on this one. Thanks for bringing it up, Penguinisto.

[Jeff Putz]

Dude, you have no context. This wasn't Microsoft's best minds sitting around thinking of what they could do. It was born out of the very small team developing the MVC framework for developers, and this is an example of them "dog fooding" and releasing what they built as a sample.

I give them a lot of credit, because we've watched the MVC product develop with source bits right in front of us ("us" being the .NET developer community). It's very un-MS, in a good way.

[Imalittleteapot]

If I had the R&D budget of MS that's probably how I'd roll too. You'll never how things will turn out, but with that kind of money who cares? No it may not be the best R&D policy for MS, but I think it is overall for everyone the best policy. Perhaps the gamble will pay off. However, even if it doesn't at least it creates a lot of jobs. And I'll tell ya what. There's a lot of bad things I could say about MS, but throwing money around on different R&D projects and creating jobs by doing so isn't something I'm going to complain about.

[bj1126]

I don't know Oxite looks pretty nice. I might snag it for a project I was looking at doing.

[maverickmoneyblueprint]

Ya I don't know, I think I will stick with my wordpress aplications and do it that way. I mean it sounds like it could be good but why launch it so late in the game. I have attented a blogging convention before and its not like blogging is dead but with it already flowing more into video why not launch this thing like 6 months ago or more. I dont know microsoft sometimes lets there add run wild too late in the game. Check out this post on blogging. http://maverick-money-blueprint.com/introduction-to-wordpress. Geez that link is long...