I'm not doubting AskSam's ability as a search engine. What I am questioning is the following.

Will Dick's version allow web/ network searches? As far as I know, it is stand alone with no networking abilities.

Having looked again, there is a reference to a network version but I haven't been able find any more on it - maybe that would do it? Aloso there is a web publisher version? Maybe that would do it?

Distribution, I see there is an free Ask sam version for Windows but what about other platforms, if you wich to keep the same look and feel as Dicks version?

It's these sorts of doubts and issues that tend me towards using an iddustry standard SQL database, some of which, including MySQL do have full text searches.