The ArsDigita Community System (ACS) was an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

toolkit for developing community

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serv ...

s developed primarily by developers associated with

ArsDigita Corporation ArsDigita, LLC, was a web development company founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997. The company produced a popular open source toolkit, the ArsDigita Community System (ACS), for building database-backed community websites, and flourished ...

. It was licensed under the terms of the

GNU GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

, and is one of the most famous products to be based completely on AOLserver. Although there were several forks of the project, the only one that is still actively maintained is OpenACS. Features of ACS included a core set of APIs, datamodels, and database routines for coordinating information common to all community web applications, as well as modules such as workflow management,

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manage ...

, messaging, bug/issue tracking, project tracking,

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manag ...

, and bboards.

History

ACS was built in the mid-1990s to support the photo.net online community as well as a variety of Internet services from Hearst Corporation. The initial developers included Tracy Adams, Ben Adida, Eve Andersson, Jin S. Choi, Philip Greenspun, Aurelius Prochazka, and Brian Tivol. The ACS was originally written using the

Oracle database Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle DBMS, Oracle Autonomous Database, or simply as Oracle) is a multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation. It is a database commonly used for running online ...

and AOLserver threaded web server and thus was a combination of SQL,

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

templates, and Tcl code to merge database results with templates. ACS 3.4, however, was also available with Java Server Pages to run with Apache and Tomcat. In 2001, the code tree was forked, with the Tcl code base being maintained and refactored by one group of developers, while the product line was being re-written in

Java EE Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web ser ...

. In 2002,

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

acquired ArsDigita. As a result of this, the Java version was renamed "Red Hat CCM", and official support for the Tcl version ceased. However, the Tcl version continued to be maintained by the OpenACS community.

OpenACS

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,

, Messaging, Bug/Issue tracker,

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

ger,

chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...

and forums. * An application development toolkit, that provides an extensive set of APIs and services to enable quick development of new applications. Features include permissioning, full internationalization,

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

, form builder, object model, automated testing, subsites and a powerful package manager. OpenACS runs on AOLserver and NaviServer with either

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ...

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the ...

as its database. Projects that were or are based on OpenACS include dotLrn, dotFolio, dotCommunity, dotConsult, and Project-Open.

References

External links

* ACS may be downloaded from http://www.eveandersson.com/arsdigita/acs-repository/
Official website
* the philosophy behind the toolkit is explained at http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/community {{Web frameworks Free software programmed in Tcl Free web development software Information technology management Publication management software Red Hat software

History

OpenACS

See also

References

External links