AGPL web development

[patpr...@gmail.com]

Hello, this is a little off topic for the Clipperz forum, but since
this is the most dynamic AGPL progect that I know of perhaps it will
fit in.

I am a Clinical Psychology masters student who has an interest in
(eventually :P) developing internet based interventions for mental
disorders. It may sound weird but its a growing trend in the field and
of course all of the options being developed now are proprietary :S
(there are a few 'free' as in beer options, but the most promising
solutions cost big $$$$$ to implement, and there are no 'free' as in
speech solutions that I am aware of)

I figure that AGPL would be ideal for a project such as this since it
would likely be implemented as a 'software as a service' web 2.0 kind
of thing. I would aim to develop an open source suite of psychology
products that could be implemented by any scientists, health agencies,
or governments to provide free access to evidence based psychological
interventions. This would allow easy translation into different
languages and cultural contexts as well as extension to other
disorders and problems beyond those originally targeted.

Given the sensitive nature of the topic, a robust security system
would be needed to guarantee the privacy and confidentiality of the
users, and incorporating some of Clipperz technology (Zero Knowledge)
would be perfect.

My questions are

1) Are there any good CMS-like AGPL projects that would be good for
extending/forking into a service like the one described (allow user
accounts, dynamically serve 'modules' to users based on user input,
offer text, questionnaires, graphs, audio/video/animations)

2) Are there any good forums/info sites anyone can recommend for me to
pursue this information?

3) Are there any clear winners between PHP/Python/etc.. for a base
language to use for developing such a service?

This is the kind of project that I may one day be able to get grant $$$
$ to develop, but initially I may need to learn how-to and then
develop on my own, so thanks in advance for your help and sorry for
being off topic :P

Patrick Welch

[Marco Barulli]

Hi Patrick,

sorry for the huge delay answering your email.

(your message was inadvertently moved to my spam folder ...)

1) Are there any good CMS-like AGPL projects that would be good for
extending/forking into a service like the one described (allow user
accounts, dynamically serve 'modules' to users based on user input,
offer text, questionnaires, graphs, audio/video/animations)

I'm not aware of any AGPL licensed CMS.

Drupal coud be a nice fit for your needs, but it comes with a GPL license.

 

2) Are there any good forums/info sites anyone can recommend for me to
pursue this information?

I would recommend to follow the http://autonomo.us website and discussions. A bunch of very smart folks! 

3) Are there any clear winners between PHP/Python/etc.. for a base
language to use for developing such a service?

I will leave the answer to Giulio, but I guess it will also depend on the CMS you are using in first place.

 

This is the kind of project that I may one day be able to get grant $$$
$ to develop, but initially I may need to learn how-to and then
develop on my own, so thanks in advance for your help and sorry for
being off topic :P

You are not off topic! Clipperz is about web applications that respect your privacy.

You presented a case where a solution based on AGPL + zero-knowledge architecture would definitely be appropriate!

Thanks,

Marco