Open Source Collaboration Tools

November 4, 2004 4:18 PM

I need a package to facilitate collaboration among a group of people spread across the Internet/globe. Ideally it would track staff, projects, to-do lists and contacts. Open source (PHP/mySQL) would be ideal. Any suggestions?
posted by Leonard to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Well, there's BaseCamp by 37signals.
I'm also releasing a package that'll do that, but more for organizations that have to track and bill for time-spent on particular pieces of applications, in about a month and a half.
posted by SpecialK at 4:19 PM on November 4, 2004

(I don't think you'll find one that's *good* that's open-source. Most of the good ones that are easy to use are proprietary and/or cost.)
posted by SpecialK at 4:20 PM on November 4, 2004

There's PHPGroupWare.

For task management, I'm all about Alex King's Tasks Pro (link is to multi-user version; I purchased Tasks 2.0, the single-user product).
posted by mrbill at 4:25 PM on November 4, 2004

Gah, I tried phpgroupware and hated it.

Tasks Pro looks interesting.
posted by SpecialK at 4:27 PM on November 4, 2004

Not open source, but BaseCamp might work if you don't mind a hosted service.
posted by wackybrit at 4:47 PM on November 4, 2004

Oops, sorry Special ;-) me=dumb
posted by wackybrit at 4:48 PM on November 4, 2004

It isn't open source, and I'm not sure if it would do everything you're looking for but I'd suggest checking out Web Collaborator.

pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 9:43 PM on November 4, 2004

Thanks everyone. Basecamp looks like exactly the thing.
Has anyone used seriously?
posted by Leonard at 3:38 AM on November 5, 2004

basecamp has been discussed here before.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:54 AM on November 5, 2004

wiki's are good for this kind of thing.
talk to dash_slot- about how he found the experience of managing / collaborating with wikis over the web.
posted by seanyboy at 6:15 AM on November 5, 2004

ewwww. not everyone likes wikis. we lose a lot in ours - it's got lots of info, but is an unstructured mess. maybe we're not using it right?
posted by andrew cooke at 6:24 AM on November 5, 2004