GNOWSYS is an acronym for Gnowledge Networking and Organizing SYStem. It is developed as a product of a widely used free (as in freedom) web-application server, ZOPE (Zee Object Publishing Environment), and is implemented in a versatile, full-featured object-oriented programming language Python. Its development is supported by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR.
Features:
* It is an object oriented database with each object provided by an unique URL.
* It is a web-application server.
* It can store both data and meta-data of objects.
* Objects can be classified according to subclass/superclass relation, and also instantiation relation (class-instance). Polymorphism is possible.
* Objects and their classes (called ObjectTypes) can be related in terms of arbitrary relation names.
* Metatype (type of types) and relations among them can also be expressed.
* Quantifiers and modalities can also be part of the persistent data.
* Data and meta-data of objects can be indexed in a catalogue for faster query.
* Optionally data can remain anywhere on the Internet keeping only the metadata in the database. This feature will be most useful for what is now becoming popular as semantic web.
* Surrogates of procedures (classes, functions, and system calls) can also be installed in the database as special objects. (Any procedure callable through Python is supported.) These procedures execute when invoked as web services.
* Using the above feature it is possible to design applications without writing program in any programming language: i.e., specifying the semantics of a program and mapping the elements of the program to the surrogates of procedures is sufficient for GNOWSYS to test the application design. This forms the foundation for semantic computing using GNOWSYS.
* Data can be accessed through HTTP, FTP, WebDav, XML-RPC protocols.
* GQL: Gnowledge Query Library is being developed for query, retrieval, and management of the DB. Presently it is implemented in XML-RPC.
* It is interoperable. Works in all the known operating systems where both Python and Zope are known to work.
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