Abstract: FReDI is a website management software. All information making up a web site is stored in a database, including the content, the page structures and graphics. A menu driven interface ensures the administration is easy. Special care has been taken to ensure high performance and flexibility without the need to be a software developer.
The usage of a filesystem for information management on web servers has mainly historical reasons. With Gopher, the predecessor of the web, there was a one-to-one mapping between the directory structure on the screen and the directory structure on the hard disk. This was a practical consideration as databases and resources to operate databases were not widely available at that time (around 1993). Most web masters adopted the gopher strategy for much the same reasons.
Today it is still true that mapping the URI path structure to a directory structure on the disk gives the fastest results. But only as long as simple information retrieval is concerned. When it comes to grouping, updating or searching of information, then a filesystem can become an expensive solution. Too many specialists are required to run information management based on file systems.
Proposing a data base for information management opens the questions about speed and flexibility. Speed, because a database is an additional resources eating layer. And flexibility, because each web site has individual requirements which are potentially in conflict with the static schemes of fast databases.
FReDI is an answer to both questions. The acronym stands for filesystem replacing database interface.