I suspect there are many people in our industry that use these terms within their daily professional lives but aren't clear on their meaning. One indication is the notes found at the top of each page within wikipedia on this topic. Almost every page has a quality standards warning saying the article makes vague or superficial statements and focuses excessively on Web CMS.

So what does it take to be a CMS or an ECM?

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The release of Geeklog 1.5.0 Beta 1 by the Geeklog Team marked a new milestone for the open source blogging system. Although the software is still in development, Geeklog's developers hope to release the final version of Geeklog 1.5 on May 26th. The end of May marks the beginning of the coding phase for Google's Summer of Code 2008. To mark the occasion, Geeklog is highlighting the work done by students participating in last year's Summer of Code that is going into this new release. How cool is that!

Changes found in Geeklog 1.5.0 incorporates the following projects implemented during the 2007 Google Summer of Code:

• New user-friendly install script
• New Configuration Graphical User Interface
• New Webservices API based on the Atom Publishing Protocol

pTools Software today announced the completion of one of the largest public sector IT projects undertaken in Ireland to date. The HSE intranet, which is built on pTools Content Management Software (CMS), provides information and services for all of its 100,000 strong workforce, and will be regularly accessed by over 50,000 HSE staff from a network of more than 25,000 computers. Key features of the intranet include access to daily staff news, briefings and reports, staff email and contact directories, medical libraries and other resources. pTools was awarded the contract following a competitive tender process and worked with HSE ICT Services and the Communications divisions over an eighteen month period to deliver the new intranet. Known as HSEnet, it provides a single unified location for internal online content for all HSE staff and, since going live in November 2007, is already receiving more than 750 thousand page impressions per month and is expected to exceed 1 million page impressions in the coming months.

Health Atlas Ireland is an open source application developed to bring health related datasets, statistical tools and GIS together in a web environment to add value to existing health data. The application is part of the PloneGov project, an international Plone based egovernment collaborative initiative.

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Last week, I mentioned that the the Drupal SMFforum Integration module was no longer being supported by the module's project leader, "vb". Apparently, Simple Machines had not granted permission to the module developer to distribute code found in the SMF application as required by the Simple Machines License. While some discussion followed this announcement at the SMF forums, as well as here at CMS Report, none of this discussion compared to what took place at the Open Source Community.

The good news is that Simple Machines LLC has granted vb to continue distributing some of the SMF code to work with the Drupal SMFforum Integration module. vb wrote:

I am glad to announce that distribution of the smf_api_2 package is resumed due to the express permission granted from Simple Machines LLC.
You can download the new package from http://vgb.org.ru/download.

"Orstio", SMF CMS Bridge Developer, added the following at Open Source Community:

S9Y.org: Serendipity 1.3.1 has been released. This is a bugfix and security related release, basically adressing a potential XSS issue within the Top Referrers plugin as well as hypothetical XSS issues with the installer.

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eWeek: "With the recent release of WordPress 2.5, the popular open-source blogging application has greatly improved its already good administration and blogging management interface and has made it much easier for bloggers to add widgets and do extensive customizations of their blogs. That's right, the best blogging platform just got better."

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Development of the SMFforum Integration module for Drupal is no longer.  Amy Stephen over at OpenSourceCommunity.org pointed out on her blog that the module's project  leader, "vb", pulled the module due to licensing disagreements with SMF LLC.  Amy references vb's original post at the Drupal forum, but she has a lot more to say.  Amy's an active participant in the Joomla! community, a community which had their own issues with a bridge between Joomla! and SMF.

According to vb's post, an email sent by Michael "Oldiesmann" Eshom, Project Manager, Simple Machines LLC stated that:

The problem isn't with the smfforum.module file or the packages distributed on drupal.org. The problem is with the "smf_api_subs.php" file that you're distributing as part of the smf api package - it contains modified versions of several SMF functions, and you did not ask for permission to use this code or distribute it.

It appears that Simple Machines LLC doesn't have so much of a problem with bridging SMF and Drupal as much as they have issues with their own code being used without proper permission.  The Simple Machines License clearly states that "Any Distribution of a Modified Package or derivative requires express written consent from Simple Machines LLC."  No word on whether Simple Machines LLC would endorse the use of their code if permission is asked.

Packt is pleased to announce the availability of its new book on Elgg, the free open-source tool used to create social networks. Written by Mayank Sharma, the book teaches users to create their own fully customized, hosted social network for their business, organization, or group of friends.

Elgg is an open-source social web application licensed under GPL version 2, and runs on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) or WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) platform. It offers a networking platform combining elements of blogging, e-portfolios, news feed aggregation, file sharing, and social networking.

The April issue of the eZ Ecosystem Newsletter is out. OneZero has been so kind designing this issue and give input in how to utilize eZ Publish and design. You can also read more about...

• eZ Publish and the focus in USA
• Sun + MySQL
• Community talk with Alain Sahli
• Site of the month
• 2008 Open Nordic Conference

Download the magazine HERE