Topic Maps is a Web 3.0 enabling technology: Creating rich semantic models. Browsing and searching faceted information. Integration from various data sources. Ultimate flexibilty. Enjoy!
Topic Maps Engines
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel: Many different Topic Maps engines exist and you’re free to choose from most of them (i.e. they are Open Source and using permissive licenses). Other’s are available commercially and may offer increased value for their specialized use cases.
Click on the headings to go to the project’s websites. A more complete list can be found here.
Ontopia
Open source tools for building, maintaining and deploying Topic Maps-based applications. This long-time commercial application is now available as Open Source at the Ontopia Google Code repository.
MajorToM
The MaJorToM ( Merging Topic Maps Engine ) project was founded to develop a lightweight, merging and flexible Topic Maps engine satisfying different business use cases. The engine provides a couple of new features above to other engines based on the Topic Maps API version 2.0.
NetworkedPlanet’s Web 3.0
The Networked Planet Web3 Platform is a complete solution for creating, organising and publishing structured semantic data. The Web3 platform stores and manages data in a schema less data store, allowing complete flexibility of the shape of the data stored.
Ruby Topic Maps
Ruby Topic Maps (RTM) is a Topic Maps Engine for the Ruby programming language. It can be used alone or together with other frameworks like Ruby on Rails.
tinyTiM — The tiny Topic Maps engine
A very small and easy to use in memory Topic Map engine, implementing the TMAPI interfaces.
tinytim.sourceforge.net/
More Information
For programmers, many software libraries, called Topic Maps engines are available to use, some of which are part of complete knowledge management solutions.
Students and academics will find the Topic Maps Library useful. It includes many publications, a glossary, information about standards and more.
Many companies offer commercial services and/or consulting around Topic Maps products. The list of sponsors of TMRA is a good place to look for them. The Topic Maps Projects list gives some starting points, too.
The Standards are available through ISO. The latest versions can also be obtained at isotopicmaps.org. The most prominent standard is the Topic Maps Data Model which uses XTM 2 and CTM as serializations.