| Midgard | |
|---|---|
 | |
 AJAX inline editing of content in Midgard | |
| Developer | The Midgard Community |
| Stable release | 12.09.1[1] / September 26, 2012 (2012-09-26) |
| Operating system | Linux,Unix andMac OS X |
| Type | Content Management Framework |
| License | LGPL |
| Website | www |
Midgard is anopen sourcepersistent storage framework. It provides anobject-oriented andreplicated environment for building data-intensive applications.[2]
Midgard also ships with MidCOMcontent management system (CMS) built on the Midgardframework.[3][4] MidCOM's features include web-based authoringWYSIWYG interfaces and acomponent interface for installing additional web functionalities,[5] includingwikis[6] andblogs.[7]
Midgard is built on theGNOME stack of libraries likeGLib and libgda, and has language bindings forC,Python,Objective-C andPHP.[8][9]Communications between applications written in the different languages happen overD-Bus.[10] The CMS functionalities run on theLAMP (Linux,Apache,MySQL andPHP) platform.[11] Midgard can also be used withPHPCR, the PHP implementation of theJava Content Repository standard.[12][13] In early 2000s (decade) there was also a pure-PHP implementation of the Midgard API calledMidgard Lite that has since been re-implemented as themidgard-portable project.[14][15]
The project follows the synchronized, 6 month release cycle that is implemented by several major open source projects likeUbuntu andGNOME.[16][17] Because of this, the version numbering reflects the year and month of a release. The version 8.09Ragnaroek has been designated as a "Long Term Support" release.[18]
Especially the templating and page composition features of Midgard have received praise, earning honorary mentions in several CMS Watch surveys.[19][20][21][22] It also got score of 42 out of 45 in theCelebrity CMS Deathmatch of 2009[23]
The nameMidgard comes fromNordic mythology, meaningMiddle earth, the world of humans. Most of the Midgard developer community comes from theBaltic region,[24][25] and the project has been referred by CMS Watch as theHanseatic League of Content Management.[26]
Midgard Project was started in early 1998 byJukka Zitting andHenri Bergius for aFinnishhistorical reenactmentorganization —Harmaasudet— as a system for them to publish their material online.[27][28]
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.[29] The version 1.0 of Midgard was released to the public on May 8, 1999.[30] It attracted a steady stream of users, and the development project flourished despite quite primitive early user interfaces.[31][32]
Commercial services for the platform started to appear in early 2000. One of the first adopters was Envida, aDutch company that realized the potential of Midgard forWeb hosting purposes. Firstproprietary application for the platform was Hong Kong Linux Center (HKLC) Nadmin Studio content management system.[33][34]
In early 2000s (decade), Midgard developers participated actively inOSCOM,[35] the collaborative organization for open source content management systems. This included development of shared content editing clients like Twingle[36][37][38] and tutorials in various conferences.[39] Midgard also featured in F.U.D., the Wyona Pictures documentary about OSCOM.[40]
First application not connected withcontent management wasNemein.Net,aProfessional Services Automation application released in 2002 by Nemein, aFinnish Midgard company.[41] In May 2004 the Nemein.Net suite was renamed to OpenPSA and released under Open Source licensing.[42]
By 2009, some social web services, likeQaiku have also adopted Midgard as their content management platform.[43] It also runs in organizations likeHelsinki University of Technology[44] andMaemo.[45]e-commerce 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.[46]
Midgard has seen some non-Web use also, including providing synchronization with theTomboy note-taking application for Linux desktop.[47]
In addition to regular content management, Midgard is seeing use in special web application scenarios likeLufthansa's system for managing global marketing budgets andHP's client documentation system.[citation needed]
The Midgard content repository library entered theDebian distribution in November 2010.[48] Some parts of the history of Midgard are recounted in the book Open Advice.[49]
The Midgardcore libraries and the MidCOM CMS are distributed under theGNU Lesser General Public 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 theGNU C Library. This licensing scheme qualifies Midgard asfree software developed with an open source model.
Officialdocumentation is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License which supports the free usage principles defined by the GPL for code.
Applications developed using the Midgardapplication programming interfaces (API) can becopyrighted andlicensed under any terms by their authors, enabling creation of commercial products and services based on the platform.
