Borges is an open source extensible documents management system aimed at XML aware documentation projects. It's main purpose is to optimize internationalization (many languages, translations), reusable content and teamwork.
The main philosophy behind Borges is to provide a convenient tool:
For beginners: by providing a very simple interface to compile XML DocBook documents into various formats;
For advanced users: by providing a whole set of customization features allowing to easily twick every single aspect of the system: output formats and layout, custom rules, etc.
For project managers: by providing a powerful project tracking system to juggle with authors and translators, deadlines, etc.
The supported DTDs are DocBook and TDB (Training DocBook), a subset of the DocBook DTD written for the training manuals of MandrakeSoft. Adding external DTDs is very easy, even though the revision checking system might not work yet with DTDs other than DocBook and TDB.
Currently, the system allows to:
Manage different versions of a single document by easily defining derived versions based on conditional parts;
Each module is assigned a set of authors: writer/ translators/ proofreaders, each one responsible for one state of a module. Each contributor can easily review his attributions through web pages, and can receive e-mails with his current todo list;
Track the work in progress. From the whole project (made of various documents) to the most basic components (paragraphs), and their translations;
Track the state of each module according to six predefined states. (From "written" to "final language proofreading"). Once a task is completed, the corresponding state is passed and the module switches to the next state;