Midgard (software) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Midgard is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

persistent storage

Persistence (computer science)

Persistence in computer science refers to the characteristic of state that outlives the process that created it. Without this capability, state would only exist in RAM, and would be lost when this RAM loses power, such as a computer shutdown....

framework. It provides an object-oriented

Object-oriented programming

Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...

and replicated

Replication (computer science)

Replication is the process of sharing information so as to ensure consistency between redundant resources, such as software or hardware components, to improve reliability, fault-tolerance, or accessibility. It could be data replication if the same data is stored on multiple storage devices, or...

environment for building data-intensive applications.

Midgard also ships with MidCOM content management system

Content management system

A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...

(CMS) built on the Midgard framework

Content management framework

A content management framework is an application programming interface for creating a customized content management system . The relationship between a CMF and a CMS can be illustrated by the following analogy:...

. MidCOM's features include web-based authoring WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...

interfaces and a component interface

Modular programming

Modular programming is a software design technique that increases the extent to which software is composed of separate, interchangeable components called modules by breaking down program functions into modules, each of which accomplishes one function and contains everything necessary to accomplish...

for installing additional web functionalities, including wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

s and blogs.

Midgard is built on the GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

stack of libraries like GLib

GLib

GLib is a cross-platform software utility library that began as part of the GTK+ project. However, before releasing version 2 of GTK+, the project's developers decided to separate non-GUI-specific code from the GTK+ platform, thus creating GLib as a separate product...

and libgda, and has language bindings for C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

, Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

, Objective-C

Objective-C

Objective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.Today, it is used primarily on Apple's Mac OS X and iOS: two environments derived from the OpenStep standard, though not compliant with it...

and PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

. Communications

Inter-process communication

In computing, Inter-process communication is a set of methods for the exchange of data among multiple threads in one or more processes. Processes may be running on one or more computers connected by a network. IPC methods are divided into methods for message passing, synchronization, shared...

between applications written in the different languages happen over D-Bus

D-Bus

In computing, D-Bus is a simple inter-process communication open-source system for software applications to communicate with one another. Heavily influenced by KDE2–3's DCOP system, D-Bus has replaced DCOP in the KDE 4 release. An implementation of D-Bus supports most POSIX operating...

. The CMS functionalities run on the LAMP

LAMP (software bundle)

LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, referring to the first letters of Linux , Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP , principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.The GNU project is advocating people to use the term "GLAMP" since what is known as...

(Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, Apache

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...

, MySQL

MySQL

MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...

and PHP

PHP

) platform.

The project follows the synchronized, 6 month release cycle that is implemented by several major open source projects like Ubuntu

Ubuntu (operating system)

Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

and GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

. Because of this, the version numbering reflects the year and month of a release. The version 8.09 Ragnaroek

Ragnarök

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...

has been designated as a "Long Term Support" release.

Especially the templating and page composition features of Midgard have received praise, earning honorary mentions in several CMS Watch

CMS Watch

Real Story Group is a content technology analyst firm, based in Silver Spring, USA. Previously known as CMS Watch, the company announced a name change to Real Story Group in February, 2010. The company publishes reports on various areas, including web content management, enterprise content...

surveys. It also got score of 42 out of 45 in the Celebrity CMS Deathmatch of 2009

Etymology

The name Midgard

Midgard

Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic name for our world and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".-Etymology:...

comes from Nordic mythology, meaning Middle earth, the world of humans. Most of the Midgard developer community comes from the Baltic region

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

, and the project has been referred by CMS Watch

CMS Watch

as the Hanseatic League

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

of Content Management.

History

Midgard Project was started in early 1998 by Jukka Zitting and Henri Bergius for a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

historical reenactment

Historical reenactment

Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...

organization —Harmaasudet— as a system for them to publish their material online.

Since the organization didn't have resources to maintain a large development project by itself, the open source model was chosen for creating a community of contributors to the system. The version 1.0 of Midgard was released to the public on May 8, 1999. It attracted a steady stream of users, and the development project flourished despite quite primitive early user interfaces.

Commercial services for the platform started to appear in early 2000. One of the first adopters was Envida, a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

company that realized the potential of Midgard for Web hosting purposes. First proprietary application

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

for the platform was Hong Kong Linux Center (HKLC) Nadmin Studio content management system.

In early 2000s, Midgard developers participated actively in OSCOM, the collaborative organization for open source content management systems. This included development of shared content editing clients like Twingle and tutorials in various conferences. Midgard also featured in F.U.D., the Wyona Pictures documentary about OSCOM.

First application not connected with content management

Content management

Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...

was Nemein.Net,
a Professional Services Automation application released in 2002 by Nemein, a Finnish

Finland

Midgard company. In May 2004 the Nemein.Net suite was renamed to OpenPSA and released under Open Source licensing.

By 2009, some social web services, like Qaiku

Qaiku

Qaiku is a micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter and Jaiku. It allows users to post short text or picture messages that other users can then comment...

have also adopted Midgard as their content management platform. It also runs in organizations like Helsinki University of Technology

Helsinki University of Technology

Aalto University School of Science and Technology , was the temporary name for Helsinki University of Technology during the process of forming the Aalto University...

and Maemo

Maemo

Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...

. e-commerce

Electronic commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

implementations with Midgard include the Movie-TV online video rental service. It has been used by New Zealand government for running the country's eGovernment portal.

Midgard has seen some non-Web use also, including providing synchronization with the Tomboy

Tomboy (software)

Tomboy is a free and open-source desktop notetaking application written for Unix-like and Microsoft Windows operating systems, written in C# using Gtk#. Tomboy is part of the GNOME desktop environment, often for personal information management. Its interface is a notepad with a wiki-like linking...

note-taking application for Linux desktop.

In addition to regular content management, Midgard is seeing use in special web application scenarios like Lufthansa's

Lufthansa

Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...

system for managing global marketing budgets and HP's client documentation system.

The Midgard content repository library entered the Debian

Debian

Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

distribution in November 2010.

Licensing

The Midgard core libraries

Library (computer science)

In computer science, a library is a collection of resources used to develop software. These may include pre-written code and subroutines, classes, values or type specifications....

and the MidCOM CMS are distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License

GNU Lesser General Public License

The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...

(LGPL), a license which permits the software to be freely used so long as it is dynamically linked or the user can relink it to new versions of the libraries. This is the same license used by the GNU C Library

GNU C Library

The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the C standard library released by the GNU Project. Originally written by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU operating system, the library's development has been overseen by a committee since 2001, with Ulrich Drepper from Red Hat as the lead...

. This licensing scheme qualifies Midgard as free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

developed with an open source model.

Official documentation

Documentation

Documentation is a term used in several different ways. Generally, documentation refers to the process of providing evidence.Modules of Documentation are Helpful...

is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License which supports the free usage principles defined by the GPL for code.

Applications developed using the Midgard application programming interface

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

s (API) can be copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

ed and license

License

The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...

d under any terms by their authors, enabling creation of commercial products and services based on the platform.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Etymology

History

Licensing

See also

External links