Blue-sky Software Infrastructure

One of the first things I need to do on this project is to set up a website that has features that allow web-based collaboration. Right now this site just has fixed content, and I'm the only person who can add content to the site. As soon as possible, I'd like to have a site where anybody can post content, and where people can work together to take that content and gradually extend, organize, and refine it.

To add collaborative features to this site, I could try to write my own collaboration software and install it on my server, or I could try to find other products that already exist and install those on my server. As a first step in that "build vs. buy" decision, it's helpful to have a good idea of what it is I'd like the software to do, so that I can see how hard it would be to build it, and so that I see if existing products do what I want. In February 2005 I wrote up "blue-sky" feature list, and after that I started experimenting with building a prototype. I have a separate web site with information about that project. For more info, see the open record web site, and the product spec page posted there.