Recently a fellow employee approached me about some opensource recommendations in regards to knowledge-sharing. slightly surprised, as we at AMC, generally shy away from OS(opensource) solutions, I entertained the inquiry none-the-less...
Our environment in mainly Windows/IIS/Coldfusion/MSSQL2000. We have one in-house PHP app, thanks to the handful of OS supporters here at AMC (Of Which I am Chief), which just so happens to be deployed on a nice SuSE Box, also thanks to that same handful of people. (Strange, such a shunned thing could be voted the BEST of 2007!?!) The overall acceptance of that project has been astounding, actually the largest project at AMC (and perhaps ever in it's history) is currently utilizing that OS application, and has been for over a year (without any issues, crashes or failures... ahem). Despite the fact that application has proven to be more stable and reliable then practically ever other solution currently running in our institution, it has remained a political hot-potato, sadly. So when someone comes to me asking about OS solutions/integration I'm always a wee bit on edge, as I'm not a huge fan of Executives and Directors labeling me as a rebellious step-child of the IS/IT world here at AMC. But this was an interesting case:
A small group, say 10 people, are looking for a drop in solution for sharing procedural info and basic knowledge sharing where they can exchange ideas and work-flow thoughts. Obviously a WiKi comes to mind, but which one!? SaKai is being used here at AMC, which could seem like a solution for this group, but Sakai is mainly focused on learning and collaboration in a profile way, best facilitated by professors and students. Could it work? Certainly. Do we want to mix business group knowledge-sharing with Dr.McGee's Bioethics discussion? Certainly not. Although Sakai does allow for separate 'sites' to be created, it really should stay on the educational side of the house, it's not a tool to start tracking and cataloging work-flows and procedures in. So the groups seeking for a quick OS option seems very reasonable.
The Choices:
MediaWiki - A Robust solutions written in PHP with a MySQL backend. Handles large files, multimedia and has some nice editing features.
PHPWiki - A simple solution written in PHP with a MySQL backend. Handles mostly text, has a clean and easy set of editing features.
Although my initial gut reaction is MediaWiki, due to its stage of development and the amazing community that exists, PHPwiki is just that easy and simple, a caveman could do it. In the end it's up to the group, my part is done:
PHPwiki PROS:
Simple interface with great text editing capabilities
Knowledge-sharing focus, hence fast
MySQL backend can be prefixed tables
PHPwiki CONS:
Media-sharing non-existent, without third-party module installations
Basic HTML tags (Could be a PRO)
MEDIAwiki PROS:
Simple interface, aesthetically appealing
Media-sharing focused, PNG, GIF, WMV, AVI etc.
Advanced HTML and editing options (Could be a CON)
MEDIAwiki CONS:
MySQL backend can not have prefixed tables, hence dedicated DB
Media storage/focus = sluggish if not administered properly So, I've blogged, not too hard. I'm going to keep it up. I promise! 
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