A comprehensive approach in evaluating open source software using Zope as case study

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the methods used to evaluate open source software in content management systems, and take a real case using open source content management software and illustrate the problem, evaluate the software, apply the evaluation methods and study its features. The software in this case is called Zope, which is an open source software application server used to design and build content management systems, intranets, portals and applications that are traditionally used. This software is written in the Python language, one of the most highly efficient object oriented scripting languages. Many methods and evaluation models for both open source and closed source software have been created and built in order to evaluate software, and rate it based on its characteristics. In this thesis we will create one evaluation model in order to evaluate Zope (a content management system) and compare it to other models that have been created to evaluate content management software. This model shows the usability of the studied application software (Zope), its effectiveness, and features by reviewing many associated factors.