[WEB4LIB] Re: Two steps forward, three steps back

[David Dorman]

At 07:48 AM 12/31/2004, Peter Murray wrote:
>Back to the future? In picking up a thread from the list's
>pre-maintenance period:
>
>On 12/22/2004 3:06 PM, Elena OMalley wrote:
>  > It goes both ways, of course. Sometimes vendors make decisions based on
>  > sloppiness, ignorance, personal convenience, or the previously mentioned
>  > lack of resources. Strangely enough, occasionally librarians do the same
>  > thing. :)
>
>I wonder if the open source movement is closer to "ideal" of informed
>decisions being made by those closer to the userbase. I'm not familiar
>with the various projects -- does someone have an opinion?
>
>
>Peter

Peter,

I think the answer may be slightly different for the different types of 
open source developments.  I would break down library open source software 
into three categories:

1.  OSS arising out of the gift culture, developed by people who, either on 
their own or with the support of their employers, spend time developing 
useful solutions which they then make available under an Open Source 
distribution.

2.  OSS developed by programming teams working for universities, and whose 
efforts are typically funded by grants from non-profit foundations.

3.  OSS developed by commercial companies in partnership with customers.

My knowledge is mostly about OSS developments involving a commercial 
company.  When you have librarians who want to work with experienced 
programmers to customize software to meet the needs of their users, and 
programmers who want to work with them and who are willing to release their 
code to the rest of the library community, you get a powerful synergy.

What I have observed in such collaborations with the company I work for, 
Index Data, is that the development process is the result of a dialog 
between programmers and librarians with a lot of give and take, and with 
everyone coming out of the experience knowing more about the application 
than they did going into it.  The librarians come away from the experience 
knowing much more about what the art of programming is all about and with a 
solid knowledge of the software they receive.  The programmers come away 
knowing more about the subtleties of the application and with lots of ideas 
on how to do it even better next time.  If, during the shakedown period, 
the customer does not like the way something is done, the company changes 
it.  The one thing that both parties are usually less than satisfied with 
is the size of the contract--they both would have preferred it were bigger.

Certainly there is not the distrust and grumbling I so often hear from 
librarians who work with proprietary software.  But the reason has less to 
do with the fact that the software is open source than with the fact that 
the customization and installation of the software is a collaboration 
between the vendor and the library, rather than the purchase of a "cookie 
cutter" turnkey solution.

David


>--
>Peter Murray                       http://www.pandc.org/peter/work/
>Assistant Director, Multimedia Systems  tel:+1-614-728-3600;ext=338
>OhioLINK: the Ohio Library and Information Network   Columbus, Ohio
>   Please Note:  Employment at this position begins January 10, 2005

David Dorman
US Marketing Manager, Index Data
125 Mt. Vernon Street
Middletown, Connecticut  06457
dorman at indexdata.com
860-389-1568 or toll free 866-489-1568
fax: 860-346-1237 or +45 3341 0101

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