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Introduction

Last modified 2006-02-17 12:15

Software Licenses
Official or legal permission to use a specified software application or operating system.  Some software licenses are very restrictive, for example: Microsoft Office.  Some software licenses are very open, for example: "General Public License" (GPL).  GPL is a license applied to free software which guarantees users the freedom to share the software and make changes in it.  A crucial aspect of free software is that users are free to cooperate.  Users are able to help each other to share their bug fixes and improvements with other users.
Open-source
Computer software for which the source code is freely available.  Open-source software is Free Software that is usually under a GPL.  You should think of "Free" as in "Free Speech" and also "Free" as in as plentiful as "Beer."

Free as in Speech.
Free as in Beer.

http://freeasinspeechandbeer.com

An example of an open-source application is Firefox.

Python
An object-oriented, open-source programming language.
Content Management System (CMS)
A system for managing content.  Content can be a web page, an image, a movie clip, or any piece of data.

  • Separates the content of a page from the presentation - The content author does not need to know HTML or how the page is delivered.  One piece of content can be used in many different templates (sometimes called skins).  Templates can be used to change the look and feel of the site without changing the content.
  • Applies rules to who can publish - It is possible to set rules so that not just anyone can publish content.  For example the 4-H Educator might be able to publish content to the 4-H portion of the site, but not Agriculture and Natural Resources sections.
  • Can apply rules to content - It is possible to make content go through a review process before it is published to the site.  For example, if the 4-H Educator wants to post cooking tips, they might want to have the FCS Educator review them.
  • Can search and index information - The CMS can keep track of information about content--such as the author, date, and pertainant categories.  Then it can provide better searching capabilities.
Zope
A flexible open-source web application server software that was developed as a CMS and later revised into a better Content Management Framework (CMF).  The CMF was added to work with Zope to provide developers more tools so they could create more complex CMSs.
Plone
A content management system that is built on the Zope Application server.  It is flexible and provides a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communitites and intranets.

References

Coplin, Neil, Systems Developer/Engineer, Communications and Technology, CFA&ES.  http://counties.ag.ohio-state.edu/

McKay, Andy, The Definitive Guide to Plone, Apress, 2004.

Meloni, Julie, Plone Fast Track: The basics of building a content-management system witih Plone, Sams Publishing, 2005.

Plone: http://www.plone.org

Scranton, Bonnie, Communications and Technology, CFA&ES

Simon, Phipps, Free speech, free beer and free software.  C/Net News.com, August 20, 2002, 4:00am PST.

The Free Software Foundation, http://www.fsf.org/

Wershler-Henry, Darren, Free as in speech and beer, open source, peer-to-peer and the economics of the online revolution.  McNally Robinson, March 2002.