[Web4lib] What Sort of Library is Open Source Software For?

Thu Sep 22 21:32:02 EDT 2005

At 02:15 PM 09/21/2005, Karen Coyle wrote:
>Mike Taylor wrote:
>
>>>Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
>>>From: li li <liligs1973 at yahoo.com>
>>>
>>>Do anyone know about the requirement and responsibility of system
>>>staff maintaining Open source library systems?
>>>
>>
>>That would be exactly the same as for proprietary systems.
>For the developers, yes, that is probably the case. But the fact is that 
>most libraries do not do development work on their own systems, they rely 
>on vendors. I often feel like we are comparing the purchase of a vendor 
>system with running your own open source system, and those are not 
>comparable. The open source "gestalt" is very do-it-yourself, while the 
>library approach to systems grows out of a recent (and pretty much 
>ongoing) experience of purchasing "turnkey" solutions.

Karen,

Your observations, and the assumptions behind them, may be valid for a lot 
of library Open Source software, but not for all of it, and certainly not 
for Open Source software in general.

You seem to be contrasting proprietary software distributed by a commercial 
company with Open Source software distributed by a non-commercial group of 
programmers, probably academic, that have a do-it-yourself gestalt.

What Mike is saying is that Open Source software is also distributed by 
commercial companies as well.  These companies, and Index Data (for which 
Mike and I both work) is among them, do not expect libraries to have a 
"do-it-yourself" approach.  We offer complete "turnkey" systems and 
commercial support for them.

The big difference between commercial support for proprietary software and 
commercial support for Open Source software is that the former is 
obligatory and the latter is optional.  If you decide not to pay ongoing 
support for proprietary software, you lose the right to use 
it--totally.  If you decide not to pay for ongoing support for open source 
software, you still retain the right to keep using it.  That is one of the 
main reasons why support costs for proprietary software are so high in 
comparison to support costs for Open Source software.  This is what Mike 
was alluding to when he used the word "monopoly."  (My only disagreement 
with Mike on this point is that, realistically, there is not much choice 
for getting support.  In theory, anyone could offer commercial support for 
Index Data's Open Source software.  In practice, only Index Data does.)

>  There are many libraries that don't have "root" on their own system, 
> which is reserved by the vendor for maintenance and repairs (and to keep 
> the library from getting itself into a mess that the vendor will then 
> need to fix). So library "system staff" may not be doing programming or 
> development currently, and the library may not have staff that can create 
> applications.

Here again you assume that there is no commercial company supporting Open 
Source "turnkey" software.  A library that so wishes can treat Open Source 
software from a commercial company as a black box to be delved into only by 
the vendor.  The main reason that this is so rarely done is that most 
librarians share your misconception that Open Source software is only 
appropriate for libraries who have geeks to grok it.  By perpetuating this 
myth and saying that library Open Source software is appropriate only for 
libraries with lots of technical experts (with lots of time on their 
hands), you do a disservice to companies like Index Data and LibLime whose 
Open Source software is fully (and commercially) supported and is quite 
appropriate for any library, regardless of the level of involvement they 
want with their software.

David

>kc
>
>>The only
>>difference is that institutions with an open source system have
>>additional _opportunities_, to do with control over how their system
>>works and what it integrates with; but of course there is no
>>requirement to take these opportunities up.
>>
>>
>>
>>>Are there other costs incurred by an open source library system?
>>>
>>
>>No.  There is no reason at all why maintaining an open source system
>>should be more expensive (in either time or money) than a proprietary
>>one: in fact, the converse is usually true, since _any_ suitably
>>skilled/experienced programmer can make changes as required to an open
>>source system, whereas with a proprietary system you are tied into the
>>vendor's support arrangements or nothing, with all the usual negative
>>(for the customer!) consequences of any other monopoly.
>>
>>_/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
>>/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike at miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
>>)_v__/\  "No man ought to surrender his own judgment to any mere authority,
>>         however respectable" - Joseph Priestley
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>-----------------------------------
>Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
>kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
>ph.: 510-540-7596
>fx.: 510-848-3913
>mo.: 510-435-8234
>------------------------------------
>
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David Dorman
US Marketing Manager, Index Data
52 Whitman Ave.
West Hartford, Connecticut  06107
dorman at indexdata.com
860-389-1568 or toll free 866-489-1568
fax: 860-561-5613 or +45 3341 0101

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