Slashdot Mirror
Specialized, Open Source Databases?
PyTHON71 asks: "I've been asked the head of the Wichita State University Anthropology department to help fix his growing biological anthropology collection database. It's currently in Access (insert boo's and hisses), but he is willing to have it developed in a reliable open source format. Now, there are a lot of university departments out there that need to have specialized work done on a small budget. They can't rely on just any developer, because the developer has to know biological anthropology (in this case) as well as MySQL, etc. And since it's not in the Hacker Code to duplicate work that's already been done, I was wondering what specialized database projects are out there & available for general use (not the data, just the structure)."
I guess his question is mis-phrased: he wants a ready application/database for that very purpose that is not proprietary.
--AP
Why dont you explain what you mean by 'database' first. A database can mean different things. I am not sure if you want a complete database application, front end and all, or if you just want a database design- A UML model or E-R diagram, from which SQL DDL can be created. (or perhaps by open source you meant SQL code to Create a database). Your requirements are kind of blurry to me. Doing something like this should not really be all that difficult though. If you have a developer look at the kinds of data you are trying to store, and the relationships between those data (in depth knowledge is not required of what the data actually means, though I guess it helps) a developer should be able to come up with a Data model and front end relatively easy.