OStatic

One of the nice things about open source software is that it can experiment easily. Projects that don't have an obvious commercial route to success can still thrive and prove their usefulness, free of the demand to make money. One interesting project I've run across recently is WikidBase, which as the name implies crosses a wiki with a database.

Built on top of python, django, and sqllite, at one level WikidBase is just another wiki: you can add and link all the unstructured data you'd like by just building pages, editing them with text-based markup, and adding camelCase words to create links. WikidBase pages can have attractive formatting and attachments, and you can see a list of pages or view recent history. So far, so much like any other wiki.

But WikidBase also lets you impose some additional structure on your wiki. You can define a structured page with a list of fields, and then create new instances of that page - very similarly to building a row and aggregating rows into tables. You can also define links between these specific data types, creating a relational database where both the schema and the data are subject to wiki-like editing. There's also a SQL-like dialect to retrieve data. This query language can be used in the search box, or embedded within a page to create a persistent view.

In its combination of structure and flexibility, WikidBase reminds me a bit of Jott, before they were acquired (and eviscerated) by Google. Quite possibly WikidBase will remain one of the vast majority of open source projects, with small distribution and showing more promise than penetration. But then again, it's interesting enough - and there's enough semi-structured data in the world - that it could take off. With its GPL license, there's nothing to prevent anyone with an interest to helping out with this intriguing piece of software.

• wikidbase
• Wiki
• Database