overview of isis software


The mother of all isis software is a DOS version of "MicroISIS" as an
integrated system with textual user interface. There is a BSD version
of "CDS/ISIS" which also runs under linux up to some 2.2.x kernels
(current 2.4 kernels do not support the iBCS module for COFF
binaries). Then there are several versions of "WinISIS"
(M$-Windows only, but runs under linux/wine).


A shared library version "isis.dll" of functions to access an isis db
from your code exists, despite it's name, also in a linux version
("isilux"); however, you need some pretty special libs to make it run.
A set of command line tools ("cisis") performs tasks like importing
ISO2709 bibliographic databases, inverting (index building) etc. The
thing next to an isis database server is "wwwisis", which runs as CGI
or from the command line and performs most isis tasks (win and lin
versions). However, it actually runs per request, not as a server
itself, and thus cannot provide concurrency control.


This "official" isis software, which is maintained by
>	http://www.unesco.org/webworld/isis/isis.htm	Unesco
and/or
>	http://www.bireme.br/isis/	Bireme
, is accompanied by a couple of independent
developments, some of which are in the public domain.
>	http://web.tiscali.it/javaisis/	Javaisis
is an AWT-based GUI (3.5 uses SWING) and a corresponding server,
which in turn uses wwwisis.
>	http://www.jezuici.krakow.pl/soft/iapi/	Robert Janusz
wrote a C-lib (iAPI) from scratch,
which was the starting point for the openisis software.