RE: Free/open source knowledge base system

["Martin Polley" <Martinp -at- Surf-com -dot- com>]

How can any solution be "too robust?"

"Actually, we were looking for something a little more fragile, with a
few more bugs. You know, something that crashes just a little more
often."

Just kidding. I tried the site--it looks nice (and performs well).

Martin Polley
Technical Communicator
http://www.surf-com.com/
martinp -at- surf-com -dot- com
Tel: (+972) (4) 9095-732
Mobile: (053) 864-280
ICQ 15617901



-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Barefoot [mailto:darren -dot- barefoot -at- capeclear -dot- com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 11:36 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: FOLLOW-UP: Free/open source knowledge base system



Hi,

About three months ago I posted the question below regarding a free/open
source knowledge base system. I received several replies recommending
content management systems like PostNuke or Zope, editable Web sites
like Wiki or Twiki, forum systems, and a couple of for-sale products.
Ultimately, I'm afraid, none of these were quite right for us. They were
either too robust, too complex, didn't support easy customization, or
cost too much.

Ultimately, we installed and played around with two systems: FAQ-O-Matic
(http://faqomatic.sourceforge.net/) and the charmingly-named FAQ-U (from
http://codegrunt.com/). They both were customizable, easy-to-use and
provided exactly the right level of technology. That is, they weren't
massive site-wide solutions, but they got the job done.

FAQ-O-Matic is developed in Perl, while FAQ-U is developed with SQL and
PHP. We're much more comfortable with the latter (particularly with the
very graceful phpMyAdmin - http://phpwizard.net/projects/phpMyAdmin/),
so we built our prototype with that.

We've only got a couple of questions in it for testing purposes, but you
can have a look at the prototype here:
http://www.capescience.com/kb-new1/faq.php?num=2&f_id=2. Thanks. DB. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darren Barefoot [mailto:darren -dot- barefoot -at- capeclear -dot- com]
> Sent: 01 July 2002 14:25
> To: 'TECHWR-L'
> Subject: Free/open source knowledge base system
> 
> 
> Hi,
> We're looking for a light-weight knowledge base system. I've had a 
> look through the archives, and found several recommendations for 
> systems, but all of them are of the pay-money-for-them variety. We're 
> hoping to get something for nothing, so to speak.
> 
> We're basically looking for something with a Web interface that 
> enables you to create, modify and delete knowledge base entries, and 
> then publish them on the Web. It'd be cool if the publishing occurred 
> automagically, but not critical. We're not picky about the back-end: 
> MySQL, XML, whatever. And, of course, the simpler it is to use, the 
> better. Any and all suggestions welcome. Thanks. DB.
> 


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