EZ publish

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The correct title of this article is eZ publish. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

eZ publish is a popular enterprise open source content management system (CMS) and development framework. Its development was started by Bård Farstad in 1999 while working for his own company eZ systems. Its infancy was a webshop for one of eZ's customers, in 2000 the first official version was released by eZ Systems under the GNU GPL license. It has since been developed, distributed, and supported by eZ systems with input and help from an active user and developer community.

The software is based on the PHP and a database and webserver, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle and Apache, which is the combination recommended by eZ systems. As such it is platform independent and can be used on Windows and several UNIX variants, and also database independent. If a specific database isn't supported, it is possible to write a driver without modifying any kernel code.

eZ publish allows the development of professional and customized internet solutions and dynamic web applications. It can be used to build anything from a personal homepage to a multinational corporate website with role based multiuser access, online shopping, discussion forums and other functionality. In addition, because of its nature of openness, eZ publish can be easily plugged into, communicate and coexist with existing IT-solutions.

It comes with a wide range of built-in features, which make it possible to develop professional, complex, secure and reliable solutions within a short amount of time. In addition to the built-in features, the system allows for extensions and custom modifications. Unlike many other content management systems, eZ publish delivers a flexible, generic solution with few limitations.

In addition to the GPL version, eZ systems also license the software with what they call a "professional license" which allow buyers to make and sell commercial software that is developed using and/or built upon eZ publish.

eZ publish's major focus is on speed, performance and multi-lingual elements.

eZ publish is comparable in nature, features and functionality to CMS's such as Midgard and Plone. It can easily be installed in a shared hosting environment.