[Web-SIG] The importance of deploying Python-based web apps on Windows (was: Re: [Proposal] "website" and first-level conf)

[Sidnei da Silva]

On 3/5/07, Jacob Smullyan <smulloni at smullyan.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 02:25:06PM -0300, Sidnei da Silva wrote:
> > Well, it is something that needs to be considered though. We can't
> > just close one eye and pretend that win32 does not exist.
>
> Yes, I prefer to close two eyes!

I seriously hope you are kidding.

Unfortunately that's not possible. A lot of people, specially when
evaluating open-source projects, have their first contact with the
software through the Windows platform. To quote some numbers, the
Plone Installer for Windows has roughly 3x more downloads than any of
the second most download package [1].

Now, I see clearly two options for open-source projects: have a
Windows story and increase your downloads by X%, where X can be a
number between 50-300 *wink*, or not have a Windows story and relying
on the *nix crowd to be the sole consumers of your software.

When you talk to a big organization that is already deploying their
applications on the Windows platform what story you want to tell them?
'Oh, and by the way, all your investment on Windows software, you will
have to throw all that away if you want to use our software'. Good
luck with that.

I think that it's pretty important that Python-based web apps have as
good of a story on Windows as it has in other fields (pywin32 comes to
mind) but feel free to disagree.

Sorry for the rant.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/2dfx37

-- 
Sidnei da Silva
Enfold Systems                http://enfoldsystems.com
Fax +1 832 201 8856     Office +1 713 942 2377 Ext 214