Technical notes: We're running Windows NT Server 4 (Service Pack 6) on a 400MHz Dell with 191MB of memory and 9GB of hard drive space. The database is in FoxPro, and the link to the Internet is with Active Server Pages.
Why did we go this route? It's pretty simple - the decision was driven in large part by the database. I use the database to generate the print version of the TESOL CALL Interest Section Software List via a program I wrote in FoxPro's programming language. It would have been easier in many ways to use FileMaker Pro with its very simple web "hooks" -- especially in combination with Claris Home Page, which lets you even more easily add the FileMaker Pro connections. Unfortunately, FM Pro does not have the programming capability of FoxPro, and I'd have had to export from FileMaker and import to Fox in order to get a print version. If you've ever exported and imported from products published by two different vendors, you'll know why that wasn't a prospect I wanted to consider.
To have a FileMaker database would also have meant a Mac web server. This would have been fine for web service, since Mac web servers are relatively straightforward to set up, but the database was an issue.
So why not Linux, an operating system that is designed for multiple simultaneous users and great on the web? Three reasons -- learning curve, the database, and the web connection for the database. Windows NT is arcane, but it's familiar and I have expert help with it from my partner, Steve. As far as I know, FoxPro doesn't run under Linux. If that changes, I'd consider shifting. And while Active Server Pages is somewhat arcane to use, it's built on Visual Basic, which isn't that tough.
Feel free to adapt the source code on the .asp pages for your own purposes. If you'd like to have a copy of my cheat sheet for setting up ODBC on a Windows server (with a bit about FoxPro pitfalls thrown in), let me know. It's the result of reading manuals plus the inevitable Windows trial and error.
Go to the main Software List page
http://osu.orst.edu/dept/eli/softlist/commentary.html