Submission by Douglas Arellanes
Center for Advanced Media--Prague (CAMP) releases Version 2.1 of Open Source CAMPSITE Content-Management System
For immediate release
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, 7 November 2002 – The Center for Advanced Media-Prague (CAMP), a division of the Media Development Loan Fund, today announced the release of Version 2.1 of its free, open-source CAMPSITE content-management system for media organizations. Free downloads are available at http://www.campware.org.
CAMPSITE 2.1 enables media organizations to create full-featured, powerful news web sites at a fraction of the cost of either existing commercial content-management systems or custom-built solutions.
“We created CAMPSITE with journalists in mind,” said Sava Tatic, CAMP’s managing director and leader of the CAMPSITE development effort. “Version 2.1 not only allows journalists to publish content in their native language quickly and easily without daily involvement of webmasters, but it also gives them the opportunity to interact with the software in their native language.”
CAMPSITE is based on Unicode and allows journalists to input their articles in any language and any character set (including Cyrillic, Arabic, and Hebrew). Its Java-based near-WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) text editor is similar to the widely used desktop word processors and features intuitive link creation and inclusion of images.
CAMPSITE 2.1 includes features found only in high-end content management systems, such as:
· Unprecedented ease of use for reporters, editors and technical staff
· Highly customizable user interface according to user rights (user sees only what he needs to see)
· Full Unicode support
· Easy localization (no programming knowledge required)
· Built-in three-stage workflow
· Easy-to-use WYSIWYG Java™ editor
· Built-in subscription module that also allows IP-based subscriptions
The standard distribution package of CAMPSITE 2.1 contains fully localized user interfaces in English, Russian, German, Romanian, Czech, and Croatian. Arabic, Portuguese, Serbian, and Bosnian versions will be available shortly.
CAMPSITE 2.1 is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GNU GPL), which means that anyone has the ability to download and install the software free of charge, provided that all changes to the code are shared with the community. “We chose a collaborative open-source development model as a way of leveraging our software development budget,” said Douglas Arellanes, CAMP’s head of research and development. “The Media Development Loan Fund is a nonprofit organization, and with open source, our limited resources went a lot further. What’s more, our efforts can now be put to use by many more organizations,” he added.
The Center for Advanced Media--Prague also provides full-service consulting services to organizations seeking to get online with CAMPSITE, including hosting and migration.
About the Media Development Loan Fund
MDLF assists independent media companies in emerging democracies to become financially viable businesses. To pursue its mission, MDLF provides capital and tools to a select group of independently owned newspapers, radio and television stations, news agencies, and web publishers with proven dedication to the principles of good, objective and independent journalism. MDLF funding--mostly in the form of loans--is primarily dedicated to helping news outlets build or upgrade infrastructure and thus expand audiences, bolster revenues and increase effectiveness.
Founded in late 1995 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization under U.S. law (public charity) to work with news organizations in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, MDLF today also works in Africa, Asia and Latin America. MDLF’s other activities include consulting services; sharing and dissemination of best industry practices; new-media and management training; online strategy development, including e-commerce; and development of digital-technology solutions for news media at its new-media lab, the Center for Advanced Media--Prague (CAMP).
For more information:
Contacts:
Douglas Arellanes (douglas.arellanes@mdlf.org) +420 2 3333 5356
Sava Tatic (sava.tatic@mdlf.org) +420 2 3333 5356
