OpenSearchServer
Encyclopedia
OpenSearchServer is an open source
application server allowing development of index-based applications like search engine
s. Available since April 2009 on SourceForge
for download, OpenSearchServer was developed under the GPL v3
license and offers a series of full text lexical analyzers and can be installed on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Macintosh).
After being initiated as an inhouse project in a private media group, OpenSearchServer is now supported by Jaeksoft, a commercial company launched in February 2010 and providing services and roadmap guidance for OpenSearchServer.
Main features of OpenSearchServer are : An integrated crawler for databases, web pages and rich documents; a user friendly GUI allowing development of most applications with some clicks through an interface built in Zkoss; snippets; faceting; an html renderer for integrating search results in a page; and monitoring and administration features.
OpenSearchServer is written in Java
and it can be integrated into almost any kind of application without the need to produce Java code. REST/XML APIs make OpenSearchServer connectable to other programming languages. The "advanced plugins" capability allows sophisticated customizations.
OpenSearchServer is today available in version 1.2.3 rc2 and it is considered stable by the developer's community. Version 1.1, launched in April 2009, reached the SourceForge top 15, with wide press coverage and many new users worldwide.
Unable to find an existing Search solution offering an appropriate mix of features, price and ease of use, it was decided to create some software internally which would use available open source components. The three objectives of the project were: versatile feature set allowing addressing needs of all the subsidiaries; easy access to the features through a friendly user interface; and a comprehensive solution with a crawler, an indexer and a query interpreter.
Project leader was Emmanuel Keller, CIO, leading a large team of engineers of whom 3 were dedicated to the project. In 2008, the first application was launched and soon after about 10 others followed.
In December 2009, Emmanuel resigned from his position with Infopro, acquired the rights to the solution and created Jaeksoft to develop services for OpenSearchServer. Raphael Perez joined him and they started working together to grow the user base and customer base and create the services. Jaeksoft raised a first round of seed capital in 2011.
The following is a list of main features, and these can be extended by using plugin architecture:
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...
application server allowing development of index-based applications like search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
s. Available since April 2009 on SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
for download, OpenSearchServer was developed under the GPL v3
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
license and offers a series of full text lexical analyzers and can be installed on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Macintosh).
After being initiated as an inhouse project in a private media group, OpenSearchServer is now supported by Jaeksoft, a commercial company launched in February 2010 and providing services and roadmap guidance for OpenSearchServer.
Main features of OpenSearchServer are : An integrated crawler for databases, web pages and rich documents; a user friendly GUI allowing development of most applications with some clicks through an interface built in Zkoss; snippets; faceting; an html renderer for integrating search results in a page; and monitoring and administration features.
OpenSearchServer is written in Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
and it can be integrated into almost any kind of application without the need to produce Java code. REST/XML APIs make OpenSearchServer connectable to other programming languages. The "advanced plugins" capability allows sophisticated customizations.
OpenSearchServer is today available in version 1.2.3 rc2 and it is considered stable by the developer's community. Version 1.1, launched in April 2009, reached the SourceForge top 15, with wide press coverage and many new users worldwide.
History
The OpenSearchServer project began in 2007 in Infopro Group, a French B2B media group made up of 15 subsidiaries with online and offline activities in news and information brokerage.Unable to find an existing Search solution offering an appropriate mix of features, price and ease of use, it was decided to create some software internally which would use available open source components. The three objectives of the project were: versatile feature set allowing addressing needs of all the subsidiaries; easy access to the features through a friendly user interface; and a comprehensive solution with a crawler, an indexer and a query interpreter.
Project leader was Emmanuel Keller, CIO, leading a large team of engineers of whom 3 were dedicated to the project. In 2008, the first application was launched and soon after about 10 others followed.
In December 2009, Emmanuel resigned from his position with Infopro, acquired the rights to the solution and created Jaeksoft to develop services for OpenSearchServer. Raphael Perez joined him and they started working together to grow the user base and customer base and create the services. Jaeksoft raised a first round of seed capital in 2011.
Features
Written in Java, OpenSearchServer can be run as a standalone server with a servlet container.The following is a list of main features, and these can be extended by using plugin architecture:
- Textual or Boolean type search,
- A crawler allows you to index the following: web pages; rich format documents from files on local and remote systems; and contents from any JDBC database, such as Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server,
- Full text analyzers and filters allowing indexing and searches in 16 languages,
- The Lucene library, that creates, updates the index and presents the answers to queries using the most efficient algorithms for best performance and response times,
- HTML renderer allowing the integration of the search box in an html/xhtml page, working with PHPPHPPHP 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...
and .NET, client library and xml over http API, - Parsers allowing you to get content and metadata from most documents and formats, such as MS Office, OpenOffice, html/xhtml, xml, Adobe pdf, rtf, txt, mp3/4, wav, torrents,
- A series of caches to accelerate processes and deliver faster applications,
- Monitoring and administration: Alerting services, integrated scheduler, index replication, user management,
- Free online developers' documentation,
- Advanced functionality: faceted search, clustering, filters, snippets, synonyms, stopwords, highlighting, categorization, “find similar”, automatic thumbnail screenshot inclusion, boost/reduce relevance,
- OpenSearchServer exists as a DrupalDrupalDrupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
module and a WordPressWordPressWordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
module, - The web interface is built around the Zkoss (ZK) framework.
Competitors
OpenSearchServer competitors include but are not limited to:- Proprietary applications : AutonomyAutonomyAutonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
(now with HP), ExaleadExaleadExalead is a software company that provides search platforms and search-based applications for consumer and business users. The company is headquartered in Paris, France, and is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes .- CloudView Platform :...
(now with Dassault Systems), SinequaSinequaSinequa is a French search engine.Sinequa provides an enterprise search solution that targets unified search, expertise location , enterprise 2.0 and e-enterprise enablement...
, MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
(formely FAST software) ….. - Open Source Projects : SolrSolrSolr is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. Its major features include powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, and rich document handling...
, SphinxSphinx (search engine)Sphinx is a free software search engine designed with indexing database content in mind. It currently supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and ODBC-compliant databases as data sources natively. Other data sources can be indexed via pipe in a custom XML format...
, - Appliances : Google Search ApplianceGoogle Search ApplianceThe Google Search Appliance is a rack-mounted device providing document indexing functionality that can be integrated into an intranet, document management system or web site using a Google search-like interface for end-user retrieval of results. The operating system is based on CentOS...
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