Author: JT Smith
The Catgen Platform catgen.com includes the CatGen client software as well as host services such as payment, shipping, fulfillment and order-tracking.
It is an open-source software designed specifically for non-technical users with low-bandwidth (or expensive) connections to create their own web catalogs and sell their products and services domestically and overseas. It is currently in development and is scheduled to become operational by the end of the second quarter of 2001.
CatGen is a “database-to-web-catalog” application. Users will enter information about their company, products and services into their local database. This information may include html text, images, sound and video. After registering at CatGen.com they may, at the click of a button, download this information to a central database which will create their web site and enter their products and services into a global searchable database. Their web site may be created at CatGen.com, on another site that runs the CatGen-Server software, or (later) on any other host via ftp.
Our goal, is to produce an open-source (as much as possible) e-commerce framework that can be adoped by anyone to provide catalogs of products or services anywhere in the world, or even simply to create home pages for themselves or their organization. The client software (CatGen) will always be completely open-source, and the code that we develop for CatGen-Server will also be entirely open-source.
CatGen.com will be operated by Peoplink (http://peoplink.org), a non-profit organization training and equipping grass-roots organizations to market their wares while showcasing their cultural richness, and by partner organizations.
