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KnowledgeTree - Open Source Document Management for the Enterprise

This post is for anyone that works at an “enterprise” and has to deal with the horror of big, scattered teams and network drives.

I work with documents on network drives all day, and can attest to the problems that arise: multiple scattered versions, weak search through Windows XP, and folder-based categorization often make workflow awkward, confusing, and frustrating. One company offering a solution is KnowledgeTree - South African developers of an open source, enterprise strength document repository product (here are the KT SourceForge pages).

A “document repository” creates a “super-network drive,” for lack of a better explanation. From a high level, KnowledgeTree can be summarized as the following:

1. Its a hosted storage system running on one or more servers in your organization - a file server.
2. You can save documents to it, and open documents from it with hooks built using WebDAV. (KT includes a Windows Shell browser, MS Office integration, and a Web shell)
3. It has superior searching capabilities, indexing file contents and a whole mess of metadata.
4. It allows you to add metadata to files (tags, custom metadata fields, etc).
5. KT offers a CVS style “check-in / check-out” system and versioning features.
6. If you open the KnowledgeTree server to the Internet, it allows for external collaboration.
7. It allows for logging and reporting on all document activities.
8. It includes user and group based permissions and security features (also does LDAP and Active Directory integration).

KT goes a step beyond file server and search functionality however, building in smart collaboration features. Threaded discussions for files, for instance, or folder RSS feeds. Controlled emailing of files is another one that jumped out at me: emailing a KT URL solves the problems of large attachments and multiple versions sitting in inboxes.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to take the time to try out a free, at-home KT installation (fill out the form to download). I will, however, be recommending that my organization take a look at KnowledgeTree and the document repository space in general - I’m getting tired of mapping network drives, chasing down versions, getting permissions changes, and generally dealing with files the same way I have since 1993.

KT jumped out at me because of its 2.0 features - tagging, RSS feeds, and the like. More important than featureset, however, is the notion that business users can benefit from what has traditionally been an IS-centric tool: with the lines between IS and business blurring as everyone becomes a knowledge worker of one type or another, the notions of workflow management, version management, and searchability need prominence for managers on the business side. KT does this by being a full-featured solution that integrates in business workflow out of the box, and couches the concepts of CVS management in a familiar MS interface. CVS for the business - I love it.

A final note: KT offers a free, unsupported version for download, or paid, fully supported “Enterprise & SMB” versions, starting at $2,200 USD per year for 20 licenses, and switching up to $5,500 per cpu per year for larger businesses. How about hooking a local, KT front end to Amazon S3 for truly scaleable storage? I suppose network latency vagaries would make it untenable for mission-critical settings.

Screenshots below are from KT’s own screenshot & video page. I’ve picked out some of the juicier ones…

cms, cvs, document, foss, knowledgetree, management, opensource techfold

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Where are all the opensource billionaires? At MySQL.

A few days ago, Hugh MacLeod kicked off some industry navel gazing by asking “why aren’t their any opensource billionaires?” Answers rolled in:

1. Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror: its fragmentation, competition, and the very nature of FOSS.
2. Seth laments that corporate aversion to risk and the difference between actual and apparent need holds back FOSS.
3. Dennis Forbes succinctly dissects all of Hugh’s logic, suggesting that Hugh’s analysis was pulled off-track by a poor understanding of sales and service channels.

At the end of the day, I’d agree most strongly with Seth’s assessment, but post script by saying that the era of opensource billionaires is on its way as corporate mindsets begin change on the credibility of FOSS-developed software. Case in point: MySQL’s coming IPO.

billionaires, foss, hugmacleod, mysql opensource

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