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What is OpenACS?
in <%= [ad_system_name] %>.
OpenACS is the ArsDigita
Community System ported to run on the PostgreSQL RDBMS.
The ArsDigita Community System consists of:
- a large data model to represent many facets of web
collaboration.
- a web application in AOLserver
Tcl that sits atop this data model.
- documentation that guides a web programmer through the setup,
configuration, and customization of this very advanced web toolkit.
The ACS is used by a number of high-profile clients of ArsDigita's,
but its widespread acceptance in the hacker community has been greatly
handicapped by its complete dependence on the Oracle RDBMS, an expensive,
closed-source system.
We, the OpenACS team, think Oracle is a fine RDBMS, but we really want
a fully open-source web toolkit, an inexpensive but good solution. We
don't use any tool simply because it is open-source. We pick good
open-source tools because open-source yields better products and more
freedom to the end-user:
- AOLserver: an
efficiently-multithreaded web server with a built-in Tcl
interpreter. This piece of software combines ease and speed of
development with tremendous scalability. As of version 3.0, it is
open-sourced under the GPL.
- PostgreSQL: the most
advanced open-source RDBMS available. Postgres supports a lot of the
SQL92 standard, with increasing support in every updated release. It
offers true transactions, efficient locking optimized for web
applications, and an easy-to-use interface for setup and
administration.
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