[Web4lib] RE: Open source support models

[Tim Spalding]

> 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++?).