In July 2005, Microsoft released a piece of software for Visual Studio .Net developers called the Shareware Starter Kit (SSK). A flurry of blog activity foillowed in the next few months about this news ~ but so far I have yet to find some real feedback on the kit. Hmmm.Dan Fernandez blogged “I’m way, way late on this, but we have officially released the Shareware Starter Kit on Channel9!!” on the 10th July 2005. Since then, the SSK developer site (sharewarestarterkit.com) got up and running in around September 2005. But the site basically seems dead… there were late additions I think with respect to a developer environment on DotNetNuke (DNN), but signing-up on the SSK website today revealed a flaw – the facilities on DNN expired on 6th July (nearly a month ago). I’m intrigued! They’ve expired my trial before I even signed up 🙁

When you browse around the blogs related to SSK, it seems clear that the expectation was that 3rd parties would set up SSK Hosting facilities for budding shareware developers. That’s something I’m looking into right now. But, I simply can’t find such a hosting company, and for the most part, public comment on the SSK seems to be almost non-existent past 2005.
I’d love to hear if I’m wrong! But as a bystander, it seems incongruent that the SSK was so carefully designed with pretty graphics, and what appears to be a sound approach to the licensing key issue, and then was not pushed forward by Microsoft – even if only to complete what they started. As windows-based web hosting etc is pretty much alien to me, I am reluctant to try and use this tool myself (I’d need a new hosting company for a start!).