[WEB4LIB] Re: will OSS impact library automation?

[Eric Hellman]

I think there are too different questions here that you're not 
distinguishing between.

1. Are ILS systems developed and supported better by (a) libraries, 
(b)library consortia, or by (c) vendors?

I agree that the trend, and the answer, is (c). I'm biased.

2. Are complex software systems developed  and supported better by 
(a) open-source development models,  or (b) proprietary development 
models

Here the trend is undoubtedly towards (a).

Here, the best examples are IBM, Apple, Sun, even Microsoft taking 
steps big and small (MS) towards open source development.

In the library market, you see increasingly that vendors sell 
services, not code. This is the same business models used by RedHat 
and all the other Penguins.

How many of the ILS vendors use OSS deep within their development 
process? Probably most of them. As things become more and more 
complex and interrelated, the presence of Open Components in ILS 
systems is likely to rise closer and closer to the surface.

Eric


At 2:44 PM -0800 3/22/01, Marshall Breeding wrote:
>Also think of the issue from a broad historical perspective.  Starting
>in the 1970's and on through the 90's there were a large number of
>libraries involved in the development of library automation systems.
>Not exactly under the open source model we think of today, but
>these were largely collegial and cooperative efforts.  That codebase
>has migrated from the ownership of libraries to vendors or has been
>simply abandoned.
>
>I think that it is fair to say that libraries have generally found the
>process of developing and supporting large-scale automation
>systems to be too burdensome for ongoing sustainability.  Many of
>the libraries that had created their own full-featured, large-scale
>automation systems have abandonded them for vendor-supplied
>systems. Some of the ones that come to mind include Library of
>Congress, Northwestern University, Penn State, Jefferson County
>(CO), and Duke.  The current trend is from locally-developed
>systems to vendor supplied systems, not the other way around.
>
>What is different about the current open source movement that will
>enable the successful development and support of library
>automation systems from the earlier efforts that weren't
>sustainable?
>
>To use Eric Raymond's terms, is the ILS too much a cathederal to
>be build in a bazaar?
>
>thanks for your thoughts...
>
>-marshall

Eric Hellman
Openly Informatics, Inc.
http://www.openly.com/           21st Century Information Infrastructure
Openly Jake- the library of the future                http://jake.openly.com/