[NTLUG:Discuss] Software Search

[Kevin Brannen]

Tom McDonald wrote:

>I'm trying to find a FOSS contact management package that will run on
>Linux and allow me to select a person from the database, and also all
>persons that have contact with them, and infer additional contacts i.e.
>
>John, Bob, Bill, and Fred are in the database.  
>
>John knows Bob, so the both names should be pulled (easy so far.)
>Since Bob knows Bill, John may know Bill and Bill knows Fred so John may
>know Fred also.
>
>I want the Selection to pull all the posibilities John, Bob, Bill, and
>Fred.
>
>Other considerations are ability to tie into accounting (maybe gnucash),
>ability to
>include photos, notes, and ability to access database from internet.
>
>If I can find something close, I can program the additional stuff I
>need.
>  
>

This probably doesn't go far enough for you, but I found a nifty little 
package called "thoughtracker" some time back.  It allows your to enter 
"data", then make links to the various "thoughts" willy-nilly.  Then you 
can query by keyword and such, telling it to also pull in the links (not 
sure on how deep it will go).  Or at least that's how I remember it, 
it's been a while since I've used it. :-)

Here's one link to it:

http://packages.debian.org/stable/misc/thoughttracker

/A non-hierarchical, hyperlinked knowledge base./

ThoughtTracker is a knowledge base application. Its purpose is to 
provide you with a searchable hyperlinked database of information and 
ideas.



HTH,
Kevin