Without extensive documentation I'm not sure it's easier to carefully review these preconfigured images than it is to setup one yourself from scratch.

Instead of VM images I wish there was a modular, heavily documented and peer-reviewed script-based solution for turning e.g. an Ubuntu default install into a hardened LAMP server configured according to best-practices.

It depends for what you want the images. In most cases, mainstream users don't care how the images are set up internally. They just want a Dokuwiki or Redmine instance and images like this allow them to quickly have one up and running that they can use right away, without having to read a lot of documentation or tinker with scripts.

These kind of quick-installs are nice as long as you double check that they meet all your needs. I'm not familiar with Azure, but I've used these on Dreamhost and Linode. I've noticed in some cases that the quick-install things can be out of date or set up with poor security practices, which is why you should double check them, but just to get up and going it's a great service.

One thing I noticed, and I'm not sure if this is intentional or due to technical reasons or what, is that all of these scripts are for Linux-based OSes. I'd expect to see at least a few Windows scripts in there too.

Dreamhost, etc. use Fantastico-style scripts for shared hosting setup of apps. The Bitnami apps there are kept up to date and setup with best security practices in mind. BitNami also offers Windows and OS X apps at bitnami.org, but the focus of the VM Depot is on Linux (Disclaimer, I am one of the Bitnami developers :)

It was nice of them to provide an additional back button.

So far none of the available images use Windows. All are GNU/Linux, most Ubuntu.

Since this is Microsoft I had expected to see some Windows VMs. I assume Azure supports Windows?

What makes this interesting is the fact that Microsoft is actually releasing and promoting Linux images with open source software... They know they need to push Linux in order to effectively compete with AWS and they are acting on it

Is it legal to publish Windows VM images?

Certainly--there are several legal ones floating around to allow testing of the IEs.

Apple is the only company that forbids virtualizing its OS (unless you're virtualizing it on OSX).

AFAIK, the VMs for testing IE are published by Microsoft.

In general I don't think you're allowed to publicly redistribute Windows VM images. Publishing a customized VM image in the AWS or Azure image depots may be allowed though.

AWS has Windows images available for sharing.

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsGuide...

Dos anybody knows if AWS has some special arrangement with Microsoft? For example do they collect licensing fees on behalf of Microsoft when you run the WM and thereby are except from the normal licensing rules?

Or can I also make public available Windows WM images and publish them legally from my website?

Yes, they have a special arrangement with Microsoft. That is why you will see that it is more expensive to run Windows-based instances on AWS than it is to run the free Linux OSs (Amazon Linux and Ubuntu, for example.) You can put together and publish your own AMIs for Amazon based on Windows, but users can't download and use them (as with all AMIs) - they just deploy them to Amazon and then they would be paying the additional hourly fees.

Presumably it's legal for Microsoft to publish them.