OpenACS
Encyclopedia
The Open Architecture Community System (OpenACS) is an open-source web application framework
licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL
.
The Open Architecture Community System provides:
OpenACS runs on AOLserver
with either Oracle
or PostgreSQL
as its database.
Projects that are based on OpenACS include dotLrn, dotFolio, dotCommunity, dotConsult, and Project-Open
.
OpenACS was originally developed side-by-side with the ArsDigita Community System
(ACS), a product of ArsDigita Corporation. ACS remains one of the more famous products to be based completely on AOLserver. In 2002, after the ACS code tree forked, the Tcl
code base came to be maintained by the OpenACS project.
Web application framework
A web application framework is a software framework that is designed to support the development of dynamic websites, web applications and web services. The framework aims to alleviate the overhead associated with common activities performed in Web development...
licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
.
The Open Architecture Community System provides:
- A set of applications, that can be used to deploy web sites that are strong on collaboration. Some of the applications are Workflow, CMSContent management systemA content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
, Messaging, Bug/Issue tracker, e-commerce, blogBlogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger, chatOnline chatOnline chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
and forums. - A sophisticated application development toolkit, that provides an extensive set of APIs and services to enable quick development of new applications. Features include sophisticated permissioning, full internationalization, AjaxAjax (programming)Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
, form builder, object model, automated testing, subsites and a powerful package manager.
OpenACS runs on AOLserver
AOLserver
AOLserver is America Online's open source web server. AOLserver ismultithreaded, Tcl-enabled, and used for large scale, dynamic web sites.AOLserver is distributed under the Mozilla Public License....
with either Oracle
Oracle database
The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....
or PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
as its database.
Projects that are based on OpenACS include dotLrn, dotFolio, dotCommunity, dotConsult, and Project-Open
Project-Open
Project-Open is a web-based Project Management application created by an open-source project team based in Spain and Germany.-Project Management:...
.
OpenACS was originally developed side-by-side with the ArsDigita Community System
ArsDigita Community System
The ArsDigita Community System was an advanced Open Source toolkit for developing community web applications developed primarily by developers associated with ArsDigita Corporation...
(ACS), a product of ArsDigita Corporation. ACS remains one of the more famous products to be based completely on AOLserver. In 2002, after the ACS code tree forked, the Tcl
Tcl
Tcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
code base came to be maintained by the OpenACS project.