tell me what you want
April 7, 2006 7:54 AM Subscribe
Need some help finding open source project to use as a base.
I want to create a centralized searchable listing of companies and their interests.
I work with patents, and there is no central source for corporations big and small to post what they're interested in licensing from outside sources. Some will post these on their website, most you have to ask, but generally all of the bigger companies have some focus area that they're interested in outside research. (an example from abbott: https://licensing.abbott.com/Content/SubmitOpportunityStep1.asp?Area=Medical and an example from merck: http://www.merck.com/licensing/opportunities.html) I want to build a website that allows companies to come in and add their interests, or for myself and others like me to add for them and build this list as we acquire the information from the companies by asking.
Search is important, since putting categories on the companies or interests will be extremely difficult. It almost seems like it could be a simple profile type app, although I'm open to ideas. I've thought about a wiki, but I'm concerned about being able to add features at a later point, and integrating it with the new features, i.e. if i want to add the other half of this equation - patents available and looking for interested parties.
Is there an open source project on sourceforge or whereever that can do this simply and without fanfare. I'd prefer php as I know enough to tweak.
Thanks!
I want to create a centralized searchable listing of companies and their interests.
I work with patents, and there is no central source for corporations big and small to post what they're interested in licensing from outside sources. Some will post these on their website, most you have to ask, but generally all of the bigger companies have some focus area that they're interested in outside research. (an example from abbott: https://licensing.abbott.com/Content/SubmitOpportunityStep1.asp?Area=Medical and an example from merck: http://www.merck.com/licensing/opportunities.html) I want to build a website that allows companies to come in and add their interests, or for myself and others like me to add for them and build this list as we acquire the information from the companies by asking.
Search is important, since putting categories on the companies or interests will be extremely difficult. It almost seems like it could be a simple profile type app, although I'm open to ideas. I've thought about a wiki, but I'm concerned about being able to add features at a later point, and integrating it with the new features, i.e. if i want to add the other half of this equation - patents available and looking for interested parties.
Is there an open source project on sourceforge or whereever that can do this simply and without fanfare. I'd prefer php as I know enough to tweak.
Thanks!
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If I were doing something like this though, I'd probably go with Zope (the 2.x branch, not 3.x). Its python-based, but you don't need to know python to use it. Its ZCatalog system makes adding search engines for your content easy, and for simple data models, as this seems to be, it spares you from having to use an external database (unless you want to). There probably are PHP CMSes out there that are even simpler to use, but for something like this, I think Zope strikes an excellent balance between making it easy and giving you as much control (for future customization) as you need.
posted by gsteff at 9:01 AM on April 7, 2006