[Web4lib] RE: Open source support models

[Cary Gordon]

Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://www.chillco.com


Karen G. Schneider wrote:



On Jul 11, 2008, at 11:48 AM, Tim Spalding wrote:

>> software support that's worth something costs something. No  
>> argument there..
>
> That seems right, but you can get support for many open source
> products without paying. When an open ILS acquires the same sort of
> community around it that something like Perl or Ruby has, you'll be
> able to get at least most of your support from the community.
>
> If getting your support from a community sounds like "getting your
> thursdays from a banana," you need to hear Clay Shirky's talk on open
> source and love:
>
> http://conversationhub.com/2007/07/10/video-clay-shirky-on-love-internet-style/
>
> As an extension, I think Shirky's logic and example offer long term
> succor to those Open Source ILSes built in newer languages. There are
> a lot of Ruby hackers reveling in love for one another and for their
> language. C++ is just a different cultural phenomenon. Perl, as Shirky
> says, has a lot of love behind it, but it's on a long-term decline. So
> too is PHP, my language. This is good news for Project Blacklight
> (Ruby), mixed news for Koha and VUFind (Perl and PHP respectively) and
> bad news for Evergreen (C++?).
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>