MindTouch: Open Source Collaboration Built on .NET
by Aaron Fulkerson on August 04, 2009 01:05pm
It has been a while since I last guest wrote at Port25, which is always a pleasure.
Today, I am writing about the latest MindTouch software release, codename Minneopa, which introduces three new innovative capabilities: the ability to capture and collaboratively edit video, the easy packaging of applications built on MindTouch for distribution, and the new capability to stage content.
However, if you are new to MindTouch, allow me to introduce the product. The canned statement reads as follows:
MindTouch Inc. is changing the way businesses share information, consume content, and collaborate. The company's open source platform, MindTouch 2009, combines the ease of use of a wiki with the scalability, security and integration capabilities of an enterprise portal, connecting enterprise systems, databases, web services, and Web 2.0 apps to create collaborative networks.
The gist, however, is that MindTouch offers an easy to use platform that looks a lot like a wiki, but behaves more like a portal with rapid application development capabilities. The architecture is unique and quite innovative because MindTouch is implemented in C# on .NET (or Mono) and consists of the following components:
- A decoupled PHP client that provides a wiki like interface for collaboration, document management, mashups, and for creating composite and situational applications
- Composition of more than 120 ReSTful web services
- A web service orchestration engine
- An acess control layer
- An extensible HTTP message bus
To really appreciate the capabilities of MindTouch it is best to watch a demo as we' are truly defining a new category in collaboration.
This new Minneopa release of MindTouch buoy's our efforts to help those who are building collaborative networks on MindTouch. This is especially useful for developers, IT workers and business users to package their enterprise dashboards, composite applications and mashups for distribution.
For the collaborative video capabilities, we partnered with Kaltura, the developer of the world's first open source online video platform. The integration with Kaltura gives MindTouch users the built-in ability to collaborate, edit, publish and syndicate video directly within MindTouch. End users can record video and have multiple parties edit while retaining a complete version history -- all within a MindTouch page.
Download MindTouch Core, the free and open source edition that runs on Windows Server with IIS, Linux or even with a VMware virtual image, which should run in hypervisor without issue. Or download the native Windows Server version of MindTouch 2009, which is packaged in an easy to install Microsoft Installer (MSI) and supports Windows Server 2003/2008.
With the commercial edition, MindTouch 2009, users also benefit from a rich set of desktop tools, more features and a collection of adapters to popular enterprise systems and databases.