TWiki (TM) - A Web Based Collaboration Platform
===============================================


TWiki Distribution
------------------

Version: 30 Oct 2004 $Rev: 1794 $
Release type: Beta release


What is TWiki?
--------------

TWiki is a flexible and powerful web-based collaboration 
platform that allows you to run a dynamic intranet site, a 
project development space, a document management system, a 
knowledge base, an issue tracking system and many other 
groupware application. TWiki looks and feels like a normal 
intranet or Web site. Users can freely change or create 
content from any Web browser, without requiring special 
browser plugins. 

Major companies like British Telecom, Sun Microsystems, 
Motorola and SAP depend on the TWiki platform to increase 
the productivity of their engineering teams. 

Features include automatic link generation, full text 
search, authorization based on groups, Web form handling, 
email notification of changes, file attachments to Web 
pages, revision control of pages and attachments, and 
more. The server-side TWiki Plugins API provides developers 
with a simple way to build new groupware applications. 

The GPLed TWiki software and over 100 Plugins can be 
downloaded from the TWiki.org web site, http://TWiki.org/.


TWiki Distribution and License
------------------------------

TWiki is open source software and is distributed under the 
terms of the GNU General Public License. You can request 
the latest version of TWiki from http://TWiki.org/ .

The license.txt file, located in the root of the TWiki 
distribution package, shows your rights and duties on how to 
use, redistribute and/or modify it. We would appreciate if 
redistributions of TWiki and its clones retain the 
license.txt file in its entire form, thus acknowledging the 
origin of TWiki and the thousands of hours the core team and 
contributors put into creating this product.

Please note that TWiki is not distributed under the LGPL 
(Lesser General Public Licence), which implies TWiki can 
only be used with software that is licensed under conditions 
compliant with the GPL. Embedding in proprietary software 
requires an alternative license. Contact the author for 
details.


TWiki Installation, Support
---------------------------

It is important to follow the installation instructions in
TWikiDocumentation.html located in the distribution, also at
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiDocumentation

Important note: Once you installed TWiki on your own system, 
make sure to add yourself to the list of TWikiInstallations 
at http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Main/TWikiInstallations . 
This helps in getting more exposure --> attracts more 
developers --> results in a better product.

Please add a "Powered by TWiki" logo to your TWiki home page. 
Review details in
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Main/PoweredByTWikiLogo

TWiki is free software and does not include any support. There
is a TWiki web for support questions, run by TWiki users for
TWiki users. Visit http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Support/ if
you have any installation questions or questions about TWiki
deployment; please do not contact the developers directly.


TWiki News, Development and Deployment
--------------------------------------

You can always find out the latest news at the TWiki home 
page at http://TWiki.org/ .

The place to collaborate on further TWiki development is at
http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/ . ReadmeFirst tells you 
how to collaborate. Subscribe in WebNotify to stay up to 
date on latest development issues.

A side note in case you intend to use TWiki on your Intranet:
TWiki is successfully deployed as a collaboration tool and
dynamic Intranet tool at many major companies. You need to 
consider some important points to reach that goal. Do not 
underestimate the initial effort it takes to get a 
collaboration tool accepted within the company. Support from 
upper management is a must. A company with a culture that 
encourages information sharing is much more likely to succeed 
than one where information hoarding is the norm. There is 
also an initial catch 22 problem if you intend to use it as a 
knowledge base: "Why should I use the tool, there is so 
little information in it". An incentive program to reward 
contributions, and a dedicated knowledge engineer can help in 
the initial phase of deployment.

Good luck with your collaboration effort and with TWiki.
Happy collaboration and twiki'ing.

Best regards,
PeterThoeny - Peter@Thoeny.com
