15 Years of DotNetNuke

15 years ago a guy named Shaun Walker released something special unto the world. Something that would ultimately change the way Microsoft approached Open Source. Shaun released a CMS tool called IBuySpy Workshop, a modified version of IBuySpy Portal. The IBuySpy Workshop ultimately became DotNetNuke, now known as DNN (I’m nostalgic for DotNetNuke btw).

Since then the landscape of open source in the Microsoft world has completely changed, the source code for ASP.NET is available to anyone, the .Net Foundation is around to support key open source projects in the Microsoft world, and thousands of developers work on .Net projects every day. 

In 2015 Shaun Walker had some blog posts about the History of DNN, and rather than trying to write up all of my opinions on the timeline of the project, I’ll point you to his blog series with excerpts from the DNN7 WROX book. Start reading with this post and follow the “next” links at the bottom.

What has DotNetNuke done for me? It has allowed me to travel the world, meet thousands of people and help thousands more. It has allowed me to go from simply being a software developer to being an expert in an industry. It has allowed me to learn that I can speak in front of hundreds of folks, and put on my “announcer” voice whenever I feel like sounding important! (Check out my latest DNN Tutorials for a sample!)

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to DotNetNuke over the years, and a big thanks to Shaun for everything he has done for all of us.

Here’s a photo of the first time I met Shaun and Scott Willhite in person, in Lexington, Kentucky