ArsDigita Community System

WHAT: One of the oldest database backed "portal" systems around. Doesn't seem to get much press, probably because historically it relied on Oracle and AOLServer which haven't enjoyed much mindshare in the open source world.

PROS: has corporate backing/development dollars, very capable, cross platform, well developed modules/plugins for project tracking, calender, message boards, comment on any page, bug database, etc, etc.

CONS: must use Oracle (work is in progress to become database agnostic, mostly via OpenACS), hard to install and set up.

BACKEND: Oracle with AOLServer, (or Apache with mod_tcl?), and Tcl or Java.

COST/LICENSE/TEAM: GPL

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?: read Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing: http://www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/

OpenACS (Open ArsDigita Community System)

WHAT: An effort to make ACS become completely Free Software.

PROS: Completely Free Software.

CONS: Lags behind ACS development a version or so.

BACKEND: PostgreSQL with AOLServer, rest is as above.

COST/LICENSE/TEAM: GPL

-- MattWilkie - 28 Sep 2001