Forum OpenACS Development: Windows-OpenACS 2.0 (a change in strategy)

Dear all,
these are interesting times for OpenACS, times of change and evolution.

In the past, let's say from OpenACS 5.5 to OpenACS 5.7 the same platform (i.e. a combination of given versions of Aolserver, Tcl, and PostgreSQL) could support the various versions of OpenACS. Now, on the contrary, if we want to run OpenACS 5.7 and legacy applications based on it (e.g. ]project-open[) we neeed to use PostgreSQL 8.x, whereas if we want to use OpenACS 5.8 and new applications based on it we need to use OpenACS 9.x - well may be also PostgreSQL 8.3 and 8.4 are ok. On top of that, as you know, only PostgreSQL 9.x is available as Win64 binary.

In these times also Cygwin and MinGW have started to offer new versions of their environments, able to support Win64. These are very good news, cause by using these environments on Win64 the layer of Win32 emulation (WOW) is not required anylonger. Of ourse Cygwin still requires the POSIX emulation while MInGW produces native Windows binaries not requiring that additional layer.

Lot's of work has been put on Naviserver, but I believe that Aolserver can still be considered a valid and perhaps saver workhorse.

Finally in October 2013 Microsoft has made available Visual Studio 2013, as preferred development environment for Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

All these things, considerations have made me change quite a bit the approach on OpenACS, and here it is...

Contents
This is Version 2.0 (9th of November 2013) of Windows-OpenACS port and it consists of the following pieces of software:

Generation
This port has been generated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Professional Edition. PosgreSQL 8.3.23 binaries have been compiled in 32 bit and PostgreSQL 9.3.1 binaries have been compiled in 64 bit with MinGW-W64.

Compatible Windows Versions
This port works on the following systems: Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2; it runs only on Windows 64 bit.

Most Notably:

  • This distribution has neither OpenACS nor .LRN included - users are welcome to download the version they prefer (e.g. OpenACS 5.7.0 or legacy applications to be used with PostgreSQL 8.3.23, or OpenACS 5.8.0 and new applications to be used with PostgreSQL 9.3.1).
  • This distribution has no automatic installer - users need to configure their own installations by hand.
  • No version of PostgreSQL is preinstalled and configured - users have to download, install and configure the version of PostgreSQL they prefer (the binaries of PostgreSQL 8.3.23 and PostgreSQL 9.3.1 are included for convenience only).
  • The compiled binaries have no limitation of any kind.
  • With this version of Windows-OpenACS I am "eating my own dog food", that is this the version I am using to support my current customers.
  • Spazio IT is offering support on this distribution at these conditions.

How to get it
Windows-OpenACS can be downloaded here.

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Posted by Gustaf Neumann on
Great, many thanks!
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Posted by Jamshed Qureshi on
This is excellent work. I have always find it hard to compile the aolserver, infact many times given up on tcl based appserver. This work indeed gives me the courage back to continue using the tcl in my we apps. Being on the windows platform it would be definite plus to have ODBC support as well. In many scernaios there a need to fetch data from mssql.
Regards,