What kind of content management system?
 

A friend recently got in touch with me and is trying to set up a website. I have setup plenty of sites before and used management systems like WordPress or B2, but what he wants to do is a bit more intense than what mine do. There will be multiple authors writing articles, several different sections (meaning different pages they will have to go on), and users will have to register, and possibly at some point down the road, pay to have access to read the articles.

Does anyone know of any good content management systems that will do this? I prefer PHP/MySQL. I have looked at GeekLog and will install it on a test box to play with tomorrow, but I was hoping someone in here would be able to point me in the right direction. I really dont want to have to sit down and try to write something like this by hand--it will likely be more of a pain in the ass than it is worth, especially given my (lack of) programming skills.

Have you taken a look at Movable Type, I know its one of the most popular CMS software packages. There's been some controversy over its license lately, but I think its still free for noncommercial uses. It can handle multiple users, authors and stuff.
Also, reading over your post I can't help but think slashcode may work for you, the software that follows slashdot.org. Another possibility is scoop, from kuro5hin although I havent had a chance to play with it at all. So my final word: Slashcode
Link: http://www.slashcode.com

wiki, pick any but personally I do jspWiki

My issues with movable type are its license (like you said) and the fact that it renders the pages statically each time you update. Unnecessary, and I dont want it.

I also looked at slashcode, and may give it a shot. My problem there is that I dont like perl, and slashcode is notoriously difficult to get running.

Try "text pattern" it's a diffrent spin on cms's. I really enjoyed it.

Take a look at e107 CMS . It very easy to set up and maintain, highly cutomizable and there are plug-ins for just about anything you can imagine.

It's completely php/mysql and free to use. My biggest complaint with it is they don't make it particularly easy to find what you're looking for when you visit thier site. Instead of having everything under one roof they have spread it out over several sites each of which you have to re-register with to access all of the information you need.

Try http://zope.org is you like python.

I like that... I might have to try getting a test running tomorrow.

Ill look into that one too.

Installed it this afternoon, will give it a shot and see how it goes.

Anyone heard of or used pMachine?