Press release: NGO Releases Free Software Tool for Independent Media
PRAGUE, Czech Republic – It is not every day that a charity announces a major software release, but the New York-based Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF) just did that with the release of version 3.0 of its Campsite CMS. MDLF provides an innovative range of financial, management and technical support activities to independent media in countries in transition, and the software in question, the Campsite content management system, enables independent media organizations to create powerful, effective websites under adverse conditions.
When MDLF creates a
software-based solution for one of its projects, that solution is
then released to the public as free and open source software under
its Campware Initiative website at www.campware.org. The Campsite
software began in 1999 as one of the first open source content
management systems in the world, and its list of features has grown
in response to real-world experience in regions such as Eastern
Europe, the former Yugoslavia and Latin America. It is now being used
by more than 100 media organizations worldwide, serving hundreds of
thousands of users per day with vital news and information.
One of the major areas of
work on Campsite 3.0 was to make it easier to install and use in more
places. The heart of Campsite 3.0 – its system for creating
templates that join design information with articles and photos from
a database – has been rewritten to use the popular PHP programming
language. Now Campsite 3.0 can be installed on any server running PHP
and a MySQL database server, including on Windows servers and at
internet hosting providers. “Our use of the PHP-based Smarty
templating engine will also result in a much wider range of technical
options for Campsite users,” said Campsite lead developer Mugur
Rus. “Campsite also now supports content caching, which leads to
greatly improved site performance,” Rus said.
Radio journalists will
appreciate how Campsite 3.0 provides tools for providing audio on
demand on websites through integration with the Campcaster system for
radio broadcasting (also produced by Campware). Campsite also
provides support for online polls, in addition to previous features
such as combined article comments and forums.
Campsite 3.0 also provides
integration with another tool Campware has developed – the Cream
customer relationship management system. The combination allows media
organizations to manage on-line subscriptions, ad orders, customer
information, customer communications and payment information; in the
long run, this helps to improve sales and give independent media
greater financial independence.
“The Campsite team has
put a lot of time and effort into making it both more powerful and
easier to use, and we believe this will make it more popular. It's a
virtuous circle,” said Sava Tatić, managing director of the MDLF's
Center for Advanced Media Prague and leader of the Campware
Initiative.
“We started developing
Campsite in 1999 because we saw that there was a need for tools that
helped news organizations get online. We make our tools available to
others because we are firm believers in the open source ethic.
Practically speaking, this has meant that the software has become far
better and had a much greater impact than if we had kept it to
ourselves,” Tatić said.
Campsite 3.0 is available
for free download from the Campware Initiative's web page at
www.campware.org.
The Media Development Loan Fund is a US-registered 501(c)3 public
charity devoted to supporting independent media in countries in
transition. For more information, visit www.mdlf.org.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Contact: Douglas Arellanes (douglas dot arellanes at mdlf dot org).
