Packtpub News & Articles

Packt Publishing (news, link) has released its first book published through RAW (Read as we Write) program, where customers read pre-publication chapters and offer comments before the book goes to press. The RAW experiment could offer an interesting publishing model at a time when many publishers are struggling to survive.

Long known as an open source web content management system, Drupal (news, site) has also recently been referring to their solution as social publishing software. Most web content management systems have some sort of social computing capabilities built-in now -- it's almost mandatory these days.

It hasn't exactly been clear though how you use Drupal to create social computing solutions, until now. Packt Publishing has come out with a new book in their Drupal series that teaches us just that -- how to build social networking sites with Drupal.

Makers of SilverStripe CMS, an open source micro content management system, have released version 2.3.0. The new release aims to be a platform with far-reaching development capabilities and an easy-to-use management interface.

In 2.3.0, SilverStripe brings "thousands" of improvements to the table.

XOOPS, the PHP and MySQL based Web CMS, is hitting the news again. This time XOOPS China has won the main award for excellence in creative application at the annual China OSSContest.

The award will be presented at the Xiyuan Hotel in Beijing, China on Jan 13, 2009, during the 2008 Open Source Software Development Summit. The committee is composed of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), National High Tech R&D Program (863 Program) and China Software Industry Association (CSIA).

This is a huge achievement for the XOOPS team in China. With China being a major player in the technology and computer industries and planning on upping their spending on “core electronic components, high-end interchangeable chips and fundamental software products” in 2009, open source opportunities in China should flourish.

XOOPS was also a finalist this year in Packtpub.com’s Annual Open Source CMS Contest for the best PHP open source CMS. Although they did not win, with extremely stiff competition it was notable just to be named a finalist.

With two prestigious recognitions in less than 6 months, XOOPS is flexing its muscle as a powerful, PHP based open source Web CMS.

Look for more big things from XOOPS throughout 2009. Who knows, maybe that finalist spot in PacktPub.com’s contest will become a winning spot this year.

The Joomla! Bug Squad, with the help of the Joomla! community, has been striving to make Joomla! the best it can be. And with the recent runner-up award in the Overall Best Open Source CMS category in the 2008 CMS Awards by PacktPub.com, Joomla! continues to press to forefront of web and enterprise CMS.

And the winner of the PacktPub 2008 Open Source CMS Award goes to… Today is the day, PacktPub.com has announced the winner of the Overall Open Source CMS for 2008.

A lot has happened since this contest started. The public had a vast amount of great nominees to sift through. And the finalists they chose made the judges’ job that much more difficult.

Every great web CMS contest showcases winners in much anticipated categories, frequently highlighting names everyone already knows. But what about the new guy on the block? PacktPub.com is proud to announce the 2008 Most Promising CMS winners.

Summer’s getting into full swing…and that means more web awards getting moving as well. With open source being such hot topics lately in tech news, this year promises to be a good one. The 2008 Open Source CMS Awards from PacktPub are coming.

Squiz UK announced recently that they will be conducting a networking and education series in London starting this coming February 15th. When MySource Matrix education session begins, it will include a briefing on implementing effective “Web 2.0” open source strategies.