Midgard (software)
{{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} {{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}Template:Template other{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters | check | showblankpositional=1 | unknown = Template:Main other | preview = Page using Template:Infobox software with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y | AsOf | author | background | bodystyle | caption | collapsetext | collapsible | developer | discontinued | engine | engines | genre | included with | language | language count | language footnote | latest preview date | latest preview version | latest release date | latest release version | latest_preview_date | latest_preview_version | latest_release_date | latest_release_version | licence | license | logo | logo alt | logo caption | logo upright | logo size | logo title | logo_alt | logo_caption | logo_upright | logo_size | logo_title | middleware | module | name | operating system | operating_system | other_names | platform | programming language | programming_language | released | replaced_by | replaces | repo | screenshot | screenshot alt | screenshot upright | screenshot size | screenshot title | screenshot_alt | screenshot_upright | screenshot_size | screenshot_title | service_name | size | standard | title | ver layout | website | qid }}Template:Main other Midgard is an open source persistent storage framework. It provides an object-oriented and replicated environment for building data-intensive applications.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Midgard also ships with MidCOM content management system (CMS) built on the Midgard framework.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref name="MidCOM">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> MidCOM's features include web-based authoring WYSIWYG interfaces and a component interface for installing additional web functionalities,<ref name="MidCOM components">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> including wikis<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and blogs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Midgard is built on the GNOME stack of libraries like GLib and libgda, and has language bindings for C, Python, Objective-C and PHP.<ref name="Midgard2 architecture">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Communications between applications written in the different languages happen over D-Bus.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The CMS functionalities run on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) platform.<ref name="Midgard Lights An Open-Source LAMP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Midgard can also be used with PHPCR, the PHP implementation of the Java Content Repository standard.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In early 2000s (decade) there was also a pure-PHP implementation of the Midgard API called Midgard Lite that has since been re-implemented as the midgard-portable project.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The project follows the synchronized, 6 month release cycle that is implemented by several major open source projects like Ubuntu and GNOME.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Midgard and synchronized releases">Template:Cite news</ref> Because of this, the version numbering reflects the year and month of a release. The version 8.09 Ragnaroek has been designated as a "Long Term Support" release.<ref name="LTS">Template:Cite press release</ref>
Especially the templating and page composition features of Midgard have received praise, earning honorary mentions in several CMS Watch surveys.<ref name="CMS Watch Kudos 2002">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="CMS Watch Kudos 2003">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="CMS Watch Kudos 2005">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="CMS Watch Kudos 2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It also got score of 42 out of 45 in the Celebrity CMS Deathmatch of 2009<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
EtymologyEdit
The name Midgard comes from Nordic mythology, meaning Middle earth, the world of humans. Most of the Midgard developer community comes from the Baltic region,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Midgard Developer Locations">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the project has been referred by CMS Watch as the Hanseatic League of Content Management.<ref name="Hanseatic League of CMS">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
HistoryEdit
Midgard Project was started in early 1998 by Jukka Zitting and Henri Bergius for a Finnish historical reenactment organization —Harmaasudet— as a system for them to publish their material online.<ref name="Midgard: Where it all began">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Since the organization didn't have resources to maintain a large development project by itself, the open source model was chosen for creating a community of contributors to the system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The version 1.0 of Midgard was released to the public on May 8, 1999.<ref name="Midgard 1.0.0 released">Template:Cite press release</ref> It attracted a steady stream of users, and the development project flourished despite quite primitive early user interfaces.<ref name="DeveloperWorks tutorial">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Commercial services for the platform started to appear in early 2000. One of the first adopters was Envida, a Dutch company that realized the potential of Midgard for Web hosting purposes. First proprietary application for the platform was Hong Kong Linux Center (HKLC) Nadmin Studio content management system.<ref name="German Nadmin Studio tutorial">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="The State of Midgard - August 2001">Template:Cite press release</ref>
In early 2000s (decade), Midgard developers participated actively in OSCOM,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the collaborative organization for open source content management systems. This included development of shared content editing clients like Twingle<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and tutorials in various conferences.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Midgard also featured in F.U.D., the Wyona Pictures documentary about OSCOM.<ref>Template:Cite videoTemplate:Cbignore</ref>
First application not connected with content management was Nemein.Net, a Professional Services Automation application released in 2002 by Nemein, a Finnish Midgard company.<ref name="Nemein.Net 1.8 brings enhanced project tracking for consulting companies">Template:Cite press release</ref> In May 2004 the Nemein.Net suite was renamed to OpenPSA and released under Open Source licensing.<ref name="OpenPSA 1.9.0 Released - Open Source Management Software for Consultancies">Template:Cite press release</ref>
By 2009, some social web services, like Qaiku have also adopted Midgard as their content management platform.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> It also runs in organizations like Helsinki University of Technology<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> and Maemo.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> e-commerce implementations with Midgard include the Movie-TV online video rental service. It has been used by New Zealand government for running the country's eGovernment portal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Midgard has seen some non-Web use also, including providing synchronization with the Tomboy note-taking application for Linux desktop.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In addition to regular content management, Midgard is seeing use in special web application scenarios like Lufthansa's system for managing global marketing budgets and HP's client documentation system.Template:Citation needed
The Midgard content repository library entered the Debian distribution in November 2010.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some parts of the history of Midgard are recounted in the book Open Advice.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
LicensingEdit
The Midgard core libraries and the MidCOM CMS are distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a license which permits the software to be freely used so long as it is dynamically linked or the user can relink it to new versions of the libraries. This is the same license used by the GNU C Library. This licensing scheme qualifies Midgard as free software developed with an open source model.
Official documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License which supports the free usage principles defined by the GPL for code.
Applications developed using the Midgard application programming interfaces (API) can be copyrighted and licensed under any terms by their authors, enabling creation of commercial products and services based on the platform.