A few weeks or months back, over on Matt Waite’s blog, Derek asked about the chances that DBTools — the system we use for rapid processing and posting of data at the News-Leader — would go open source.
Well, if you’re within Gannett, I’ve got good news.
Gannettoids, the tool is open to you. Shoot me an e-mail at my work account and we’ll get you a copy. Jennie Coughlin over the the Staunton (Va.) News Leader has already implemented it, and I think she’s had fairly positive results. It’s built with PHP, requires a MySQL connection and a webserver that can sit between the two. Get those, and it’s pretty easy to implement. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its bugs, but they mostly become apparent after installation. I’m hopeful that tapping into the collective Gannett reservoir of wisdom will help us create a tool that is free and user-friendly. Right now it only scores about 1.5 out of two.
I’d be interested i talking with folks about creating something with the express purpose of going open source. If anyone wants to explore that, get in touch.