--- /dev/null
+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.
+
projects / webpac / blobdiff