A Web Content Management System is a software application that is installed on your server. The software provides authoring and other tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create, edit and manage their web content with relative ease. Administration of their web content is performed through a browser-based interfaces and use of a database to store and manage dynamic content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system.

A CMS typically requires an experienced coder for its initial installation and configuration, but once installed a small learning curve, a regular maintenance and site back-up plan is all that is required.

Three popular open-source CMS applications are outlined below. Each application has different feature-sets, some with the capability to support system add-ons, designed to extended functionality including forums, web-stores, photo-galleries, contact-management etc, for this reason each CMS system will appeal to a different target audiences.

Joomla! Open-source CMS

Ease of use is everything! Joomla! delivers sophisticated solutions from personal weblogs to robust enterprise-level web sites, empowered by endless extendability and flexible design options. It's not complicated, it's easy to administer, and is reliable.

Joomla! 1.5 is open-source software released under the GNU/General Public License.

This Web Site is installed on a Joomla's CMS Platform.

Drupal! Open-source CMS

Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal can support a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites. Drupal offers robust user management and priviledge options.

Drupal is open-source software distributed under the GPL GNU/General Public License.

WordPress! Open-source CMS

If blogging is what your into or you would just like to get your business message out there. WordPress may be the solution for you. It is a light-weight state-of-the-art on-line publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.

WordPress is open-source software distributed under the GPL GNU/General Public License.

What is Open Source Software?

Open Source Software Definition - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. Open source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open content movements.The term open-source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software. A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. For more information on open source visit http://opensource.org/.

What is GPL GNU/General Public License?

GPL GNU/General Public License - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project.

The GPL is the first and foremost copyleft license, which means that it requires derived works to be available under the same license terms. Under this philosophy, the GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD licenses are the standard examples. For more information on GPL GNU/General Public License visit http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html