From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EL9zq-0006KS-UQ for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 30 Sep 2005 01:47:35 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with SMTP id j8U1dBmH014837; Fri, 30 Sep 2005 01:39:11 GMT Received: from dragon.abnormalcoders.net (cpe-72-224-83-64.nycap.res.rr.com [72.224.83.64]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.5/8.13.5) with ESMTP id j8U1ZbXt002809 for ; Fri, 30 Sep 2005 01:35:38 GMT Received: (qmail 13886 invoked from network); 29 Sep 2005 21:44:51 -0400 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.10.102?) (192.168.10.102) by 192.168.10.2 with SMTP; 29 Sep 2005 21:44:51 -0400 Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Document management solution [possibly a bit off-topic...] From: Eric Crossman To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <20050930102723.AF00.NICK@rout.co.nz> References: <433C2A1B.50703@shic.co.uk> <20050930102723.AF00.NICK@rout.co.nz> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:43:06 -0400 Message-Id: <1128044586.5145.29.camel@localhost> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: d6b573c6-9b0a-4527-91ce-0272ed82f66f X-Archives-Hash: 638597c9db4040934e36ebabfca45921 On Fri, 2005-09-30 at 10:36 +1200, Nick Rout wrote: > On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:52:54 -0400 (EDT) > A. Khattri wrote: > > > On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Steve [Gentoo] wrote: > > > > > Alfresco is what I'd have called a content management system - as > > > opposed to a document management system. I'm interested in managing > > > archives of documents I have received from other people (in dead-tree > > > format)... > > > > If there was something that scanned the document, performed OCR on it, > > checked the OCR output and then built an electronic repository for you I'd > > recommend it. Until then, Alfresco is the closest thing Ive seen that is > > open source. If you're willing to do your own scanning and OCR'ing then it > > will do the rest. > > > > BTW, I would call things like Mambo or Xaraya, content-management tools - > > Alfresco is a slightly different kettle of fish. > > Yes I know what Steve is after, and I'd love to find a way. I was put > off by Alfresco being called "Content Management" because all of the > content management systems I have seen end up bioding something that > resembles [name your favourite news website] > > A closer look at alfresco reveals that it does look more like what Steve (and I ) are after. > > I am a lawyer and I handle hundreds of documents every week, from email > through pdf (both made from an electronic source and therefore has all > the text available, and scanned) openoffice (one enlightened client!), > word, excel, html, faxes, letters (on paper, ya know!) you name it > someone will send me something in it! > > It'd be great to have a metadata system where I could give everything > some keywords: > > client name, file number, matter number, subjects, useful as a > precedent, useful case etc etc etc so that in future I can : > > pull up every document on my computer, my secretary's computer, my mail > server (including attachments), my file server, my palm pilot, relating > to a particular client > > pull up every document about company debentures > > find the case i downloaded and stored somewhere about liability of > guarantors in a consumer credit loan > > find the seminar book for the seminar i went to on asome new area of > law. > > find a letter written by Joe Bloggs sometime in 2003. > > > > > > > > -- > > > > -- > > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > -- > Nick Rout > I'm not sure if what you're describing exists right now in the open source world, but I can tell you that it certainly does in the commercial world. I used to work in the "metadata" department for a startup here in upstate NY, USA that built a web based application targeting lawyers such as yourself. It was written in PHP/MySQL but the database was being migrated to Oracle due to the rapid growth in the database tables. Unfortunately though, in the migration to Oracle, they elected to create a "dynamic" scheme to support adding custom metadata fields as requested per client. It was great for flexibility but the performance was horrible even on quad 3 ghz xeon boxes with maxed out memory. For us programmers, it also made the easy queries difficult and the hard queries near impossible. Eric -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list