Hi, I'm JT and these are my thoughts on community, content management, Plain Black, and WebGUI.
Hi, I'm JT and these are my thoughts on community, content management, Plain Black, and WebGUI.
I don't want to support WebGUI on Windows anymore. But I'll come back to this later. I'm sure that Windows is a fine operating system. Otherwise, why would all those people be using it? However, WebGUI and Windows don't play nicely. This is isn't so much about WebGUI as it is the combination of mod_perl, WebGUI, and all our prerequisite Perl modules and Windows. WebGUI runs about three times slower on Windows than it does on any other platform. And under duress mod_perl seems to give up the ghost when on Windows, which it doesn't do on any other platform. When I was developing WRE 0.8, I wrote it with the intention that it should work fine on every platform. I went to great lengths to ensure this. I spent about 300 hours developing WRE 0.8, and that time would have been much less had I not had to worry about Windows. And then, when we got into testing for Windows, we put in another 150 hours, just to work out all the kinks on Windows. With each new release of the WRE we spend about 20 hours implementing and testing on Unix, and another 30 hours on Windows. With all that effort, and even though the Windows version is downloaded more times than all the unix versions combined, we still have only 3 production Windows deployments that I'm aware of, and one of those is migrating to Linux shortly. This is just a ridiculous waste of our time. We could have used those hundreds of hours we've put into Windows to add new features to WebGUI, or to fix bugs faster as they are reported. Instead we're screwing around with something that hardly anybody uses. There's a big fork in the road in the coming months. We need to decide which way to go, because the path we're on currently ends with WRE 0.8. The only problem is that I'm not entirely sure which way to go. There are three choices ahead of us for Windows users. 1: Eliminate the Windows version all together, and tell Windows users to use VMWare to install our VMWare appliance. 2: Set up WebGUI to work with FastCGI in addition to mod_perl. Provide an installer that will install WebGUI with FastCGI (and all it's prereqs) into IIS. 3: Set up WebGUI to work with FastCGI in addition to mod_perl, and provide a new WRE for Windows users that uses FastCGI instead of mod_perl. I should note that I don't know that option 2 or 3 will entirely resolve the Windows problems. I do know that it will be at least somewhat better, but it may not be as good as WebGUI on unix. It may not be possible to make WebGUI on Windows ever perform as well or a stably as it does on Unix. That's why I'm leaning toward option 1. It gives Windows users all the power of WebGUI, and no incompatibilities at all. In addition, it saves us a lot of time that we could be using to make WebGUI better. What are your thoughts?
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User:
perlmonkey2
Date: 8/21/2008 11:19 am |
Rating: 2
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Status: Approved |
Me too on option 1.
Small scale windows users will almost certainly see a performance increase using the VM appliance anyways, along with easier administration. Large scale windows users will be paying license fees and dealing with vendors who will have sold them something to run besides WG (Oracle, Blackboard, Novell, etc). I don't see who would be hurt by this decision, and the amount of hours saved will help everyone else out immensely. Just my $.04 (adjusted for inflation)
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User:
martink
Date: 8/21/2008 11:23 am |
Rating: 16
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Status: Approved |
I think option 1 is the best choice. I have to admit that I have only used the Linux WREs, but porting to FastCGI seems to only continue the tedium. From what I've heard the VMWare image work pretty well, so that seems to be a good way for windows-only people to at least check out WebGUI and decided whether they want use WebGUI or not.
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User:
nuba
Date: 8/21/2008 11:35 am |
Rating: 0
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Status: Approved |
I vote for: 1: Eliminate the Windows version all together, and tell Windows users to use VMWare to install our VMWare appliance. I understand most of the windows users are just testing the waters and end up going with a *nix hosting when its time to push anything critical into production. If that's accurate, then it should be enough keeping the WebGUI VMWare appliance up-to-date, and providing some friendly articles or tutorials on how to get it working. Nuba Princigalli
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User:
xootom
Date: 8/21/2008 12:23 pm |
Rating: -2
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Status: Approved |
Option 1.
The demo sites are really useful to quickly bash around in the interface and get a feel for how admin works. So while Windows is the dominant desktop OS, this reduces the need for a one-click setup version for evaluation.
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User:
jigou
Date: 8/21/2008 12:36 pm |
Rating: 3
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Status: Approved |
We've been running 10-12 WebGUI sites (all our own) on a Windows server since 2003. (OK, we bought a new server last year....so it's been two servers....)
I certainly appreciate the effort you (JT / PB) have put into the latest WRE that we're using; it's lightyears ahead of the zip-n-go installation, and I won't even mention attempting to set it up from scratch in 2002......
We're on Windows, and haven't switched to *nix, because:
1. We haven't had a need to switch - it's working.
2. We're primarily a Windows shop, so bringing a *nix box online adds to the complexity for our support staff
Has the WRE on Windows been all sunshine and fuzzy bunnies? Nope - and the issues I've experienced are primarily related to what JT alluded to in the second paragraph - mod_perl currently doesn't play all that well with Windows, and I haven't seen much that says it will at any point in the future.
I guess that's a lot of typing to say we're running on Windows, are pretty happy with it, and that it can be done, albeit with a few pains here and there.
I've had conversations about moving to Linux (both internally and with JT or another PB staffer at every WUC to date), but we haven't done it yet because....well, see above.
Of the options presented, #1 is most compelling to me at the time because we're actually moving that direction - we plan to migrate to a VMWare setup for our hosting server within the next few months.
I've had a couple of discussions with our IT support staff, and they're not REAL excited about the VMWare appliance being based on *nix....but we'd rather stick with wG and deal with *nix than migrate to another CMS and stick with Windows.
They MIGHT be happier with FastCGI/IIS, but I'd rather be mainstreamed and run the appliance with *nix than move from one side of my "fringe implementation" island to the other. 
Jarrod
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User:
ehab
Date: 8/25/2008 7:51 pm |
Rating: -1
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Status: Approved |
I have never used windows for WebGUI and never planning to. In fact now my main desktop is Linux and it rocks.
But here is the thing that those using windows are not taking into consideration when talking about vmware.
Having a vmware image, does not mean you have WebGUI on windows. It only means you have WebGUI on LINUX inside windows. That also means that if you are going to administer your installation of WebGUI, upgrade it etc, you have to understand Linux.
There is no way around it, you will still use your windows hardware but you will need to learn Linux. You will need to upgrade the packages in linux, to back it up etc.
I still vote for 1. But if that is going to be done, the time saved should be used to make WRE have the tools to enable windows ( and linux users ) to upgrade WRE and WebGUI without having to mess around with command line. That way windows users using the vmware image could be better off. Also for the vmware image a front end to the command line
yum update
or its apt-get equivalent should reduce the pains of windows users that get a heart attack when they see a text console.
Ehab Heikal
www.elmotaheda.com , www.mashy.com
Quote: An eye for an Eye only helps make the whole world blind
Gandhi
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User:
knowmad
Date: 8/21/2008 9:12 pm |
Rating: -5
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Status: Approved |
After deploying WebGUI to 2 production Windows servers, I've come to the same conclusion--WebGUI and Windows don't play well. My experience with mod_perl/Apache on Windows had been pretty good which is why I attempted to deploy the Windows WRE. However, WebGUI goes way beyond the scripts I had been deploying.
In response to Jarrod, I'm selling the VMware install to my clients as an appliance. They just need to make sure that the VMware hardware is working. We take care of any problems with the appliance including WebGUI upgrades, OS upgrades, etc.
Personally, we use an Ubuntu image rather than CentOS which Plain Black deploys.
William
----
Knowmad Technologies
http://www.knowmad.com
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User:
faxioman
Date: 8/23/2008 11:03 am |
Rating: -3
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Status: Approved |
Option 1.
I think that VMWare option is not so bad...new server with VT processors works really fine with it (we have some production deployment with the free version too).
Anyway, for totally M$ lovers, another option is WebGUI on Linux inside M$ Virtual Server 2005 
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User:
koen
Date: 8/24/2008 4:43 am |
Rating: -2
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Status: Approved |
I couldn't agree more on option 1.
It would make things a lot clearer, plus we can answer all questions on the discussion boards with 'sorry windows isn't suited for WebGUI'.
Koen de Jonge - ProcoliX
http://www.procolix.com
Hosting - WebGUI - Virtualization
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User:
zylo
Date: 8/30/2008 11:55 am |
Rating: -1
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Status: Approved |
Greetings,
I am for option 1, sad to see so many hours spend on making it work on windows when only so few production systems exist.
That being said, I also want to voice my thanks to the WebGUI creators and the WebGUI community for the most awesome CMS system and web platform. (ok I haven't tried any others, but do I need to?).
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User:
arjan
Date: 8/31/2008 9:35 am |
Rating: -1
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Status: Approved |
This doesn't seem to be a controversial issue and I'm for option 1 as well, since vmware-player for windows is gratis. However I guess there aren't many windows users here to make a case for the opposite and as being said above: the VMWare image it's having WebGUI on Windows.
Why was a WebGUI-on-windows developed in the first place? To show the power of WebGUI to a user or content manager or to a windows-administrator or -developer as well? To be able to say WebGUI is platform-independent? I guess it does deepen the divide between platforms.
I completely understand it, if support for Windows is dropped. It's not very important to me, but not completely not. Often when a quote is requested, the document with requests includes support for Windows. Eventually we always end up with Linux on our own systems, but I think it does work that we can say that it runs on Windows in the initial phase.
Kind regards,
Arjan Widlak
United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector
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User:
knowmad
Date: 9/3/2008 1:41 pm |
Rating: 2
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Status: Approved |
I think Arjan brings up some good points. I'm in complete agreement for dropping it but do wonder what the original motivation was for supporting Windows. Was it a sales pitch as Arjan suggests? Could we say it runs under Windows via a virtualization layer?
Arjan, do you think that would be acceptable for a proposal? I think that I could get away with it unless it was closely questioned.
William
----
Knowmad Technologies
http://www.knowmad.com
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User:
arjan
Date: 9/3/2008 3:36 pm |
Rating: -4
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Status: Approved |
I think the answer lies in what you say: can you get away with it? The reason they ask is, I suspect, that they have some bulk-contract with a firm that deals with Windows servers. They have a guy who knows to install windows updates and doesn't know how to support *nix. So if we think about the reason behind the requirement the answer: no, probably not.
On the other hand: although they do all the time, I can hardly believe that the government is actually supposed or allowed to require support for a specific commercial operating system. If we turn it around: I do know they can't demand open source software unless you require all of the 'ten characteristics' they found on the opensource.org website, because otherwise it's unfair competition with proprietary software suppliers. (In Europe.)
So if we take the question a bit more literally and take into account that they are probably not allowed to pose requirements like that anyway, I would say: yes and gamble that it will not be closely questioned.
Kind regards,
Arjan Widlak
United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector
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User:
JT
Date: 9/3/2008 4:33 pm |
Rating: -6
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Status: Approved |
The original reason to do the WRE on Windows was basically to say we supported all platforms. And in the hopes that someone who only likes Windows might give us a chance where they otherwise might not.
