Open Source nukes online costs

By RICHARD WOOD

Two project groups have opted for free Open Source tools and a content management system to slash the cost of new website developments.

The latest site of the two - Manawa - began trials six weeks ago. It is understood to have cost less than $30,000 to get up and running.

The site is backed by the Department of Conservation and the Auckland Regional Council and is a co-ordination and news site for environment organisations and volunteers in Auckland.

The other site - The Big Idea - is just finishing a nine-month pilot phase and is to be officially launched by the Prime Minister on Friday.

The Big Idea is a site to help identify work and income opportunities for creatively skilled people.

Managed by the Arts Work Project - a partnership of Artists Alliance, Auckland City Council, Auckland New Ventures, and Work and Income Auckland - the Big Idea site cost $68,240 to start, compared with an original estimate of $200,000 using commercial tools.

In both cases, major savings have come from using an Open Source content management system called Postnuke. This is a membership-based web publishing system in its early stages of development.

Apart from Postnuke, the two sites use the PHP language and MySQL database. Both were built by Open Source specialist integrator Asterisk.

Asterisk CEO Chris Hegan said before it considered Postnuke, Asterisk's estimate for the Big Idea was $150,000, but the use of Postnuke reduced the work needed.

Funding came from Creative NZ, the Auckland City Council, the Community Employment Group and Work and Income Auckland.

The money has been spent on software development and site hosting by Asterisk, site design by Paradigm Design and a Maori participation strategy, including translations.

Creative NZ senior manager Elizabeth Vaneveld said the high cost of the initial estimate led them to hunt for an alternative.

She said the philosophy of the Open source community seemed a good fit with the community-based nature of the project.

The Big Idea has attracted 1200 registered users since its pilot launch on December 3.

Manawa

The Big Idea