Open source software of the free as in free beer and free as in free speech variety has matured to the point that there are now strong contenders in nearly every category, though that doesn’t make them easy choices. It’s often revealing when people criticize OSS as being free as in free kittens, which is true in the sense that F/OSS does require continued care and feeding to make it work, and false in that it suggests commercial solutions don’t. Indeed, as technology reaches deeper into our daily activities, the suggestion that we could make a product decision and then walk away is, perhaps, the most dangerous.

The choice between commercial and OSS is an especially interesting question in a situation I’m familiar with. When we first adopted the software in question, we had free use of it. And even when the developer began requiring annual licensing fees, the costs were initially below $2,000. In time the developer became a formal company, took on venture capital, a large staff and sales force, and eventually was acquired by a competitor. All along, the licensing costs grew, most dramatically over the past few years. The company recently quoted $57,000 in fees for 2009, and looking forward, licensing fees will likely reach $100,000 by 2015 (see graph above).

Because of the growing costs of maintaining the software, a consortium is considering pooling funds and operating a single instance to serve all members. Sometimes, the difficulty of distilling the varied needs and interests of the consortium members is worth the effort, but the vendor’s formula for licensing fees doesn’t yield a significant discount, and the consortial proposal calls for seven FTE of staff to manage and maintain the software (our own use requires .25 FTE).

This is interesting because, while writing my LTR on open source software for libraries, I had an opportunity to speak with Maureen Sheehan, technology integrator for a public school district in southeastern New Hampshire. Open source is relatively common within higher ed, but if there’s anything to stereotypes, universities are rich with staff and other resources while our public schools are in quite the opposite position. Is free software the sole provence of the privileged?

As it turns out, no. Sheehan was speaking to me about her experiences with Moodle, an open source application in the same market as the commercial software that’s becoming so expensive for us now. Moodle is a learning management system, or LMS, that helps teachers deliver instructional content online, as well as offer online class discussions, tests, and quizzes and allow students to submit homework assignments online. Here’s Sheehan’s story from the LTR:

Sheehan says she started looking at the software when a teacher who was familiar with it from another school system requested it. Sanborn didn’t have an LMS, so she mentioned it to the network administrator, who was able to get Moodle up and running in a day. “And he was able to get all the students imported, so they could use it quickly.”

With the project now in its second year, Sheehan says “I love it, it’s wonderful for our district,” adding that it’s “very convenient. It’s improved communication with our students.” She offers the story of a math teacher who posts all his homework assignments for all his classes in Moodle, “so students and parents can always see what’s been assigned, and download the worksheets,” as well as the story of an English teacher who asks students to continue in-class discussions of their reading online in Moodle.

Noting an upcoming requirement from the state that students maintain portfolios of their work, Sheehan says the district is planning to use Moodle as an “e-portfolio system.” The school system’s earlier leap to open source, as it turns out, has positioned it well for the new requirements and will save it from having to buy a commercial product.

And the price was one of the biggest selling points. “The fact that it was free gave me more confidence,” says Sheehan, who notes that so far the only costs have been for time spent training the teachers.

Do the math on what Sheehan’s district is paying for Moodle. The software is free, Sheehan and the network administrator are supporting it along with their other responsibilities, and the training is the same as for a commercial alternative. Even better, Moodle might save the school as much as $25 per student/year for a commercial portfolio system, a lot of money for any district.

Now do the math comparing Moodle to the commercial product we’re now using. Using Sheehan’s experience, it appears that staffing requirements may be lower than for the commercial solution. And using the free kittens metaphor, it seems that the money saved from not licensing the commercial product can be invested in additional staff to develop new features or offer more support to instructors.

The most difficult aspect of this is the cost of switching applications — the cost of re-training a user-base that may range from indifferent to change-opposed. And that’s where F/OSS becomes most interesting. Commercial vendors tell us we can’t afford to develop software that delivers the features they offer, but at the end of the day it’s the people on the ground that make it work. Where better to spend the money, on a far away vendor or on building a strong staff that can act and lead locally?

Anybody who thinks Free Software is anti-copyright or disrespectful of intellectual property should take a look at Mark Jaquith’s post, What a GPL’d Movable Type means. Let’s be clear, Anil Dash takes issue with Jaquith’s interpretation, but the point is Jaquith’s offense at what appears to be Six Apart’s grabbiness for any code somebody might contribute.

Freedom 0 was one thing, the willingness of a person to pour his or her sweat into something, then watch somebody else (or even risk watching somebody else) profit from it is another.

open source, free software, F/OSS, copyleft, copyright, intellectual property

Sarah Houghton-Jan’s review of my LTR on open source software for libraries reminded me I wanted to blog this related piece I’d written for American Libraries.

Tim Spalding cocks his head a bit as he says it to emphasize the point: “LibraryThing.com is social software.” However we categorize it, Spalding’s baby has become a darling to librarians, and as we sat chatting over lunch in spring 2006, the web application that had begun life just to months earlier was to catalog its 3-millionth book.

LibraryThing is no library — Spalding’s critics are quick to remind him of that — but it does open some of the activities of librarianship–the cataloging and organization of books–to a world of bibliophiles eager to partake. Librarians and patrons alike cannot help but compare LibraryThing to their own libraries’ catalogs and wonder how this free software, built (well, crafted) in less than a year by a solo developer who didn’t know he was creating a Web 2.0 start-up, could deliver so many features that we’ve wanted in our “real” libraries.

Catalogs, in libraries anyway, are inventories. Their design and features often reflect the interests and needs of those in the library’s back rooms rather than of the patrons entering and exiting through the front gates: but nobody told Spalding that before he began, and the result reflects the things he wanted to do as a reader and consumer of books: He set out to build software that allowed him and any other user the opportunity to organize the world of books to their liking.

But today he can’t quite understand my question: “How did you choose to use PHP and MySQL?” The answer, it seems, was a no-brainer. Spalding was confident and experienced with those technologies–the former a programming language and the latter a database environment–and, even better, they were free. Not just free as in “free beer,” but also free as in “free speech.”

Along with PHP and MySQL. Spalding happily and unquestioningly hopped on board with Apache, an open source web server, and Linux, the open source operating system on which LibraryThing runs. That particular combination, popular worldwide, is known as LAMP (Linux, Apache. MySQL, PHP). Together, this platform of free tools has lowered the cost of development and reduced the risk of exploration.

Librarian Aaron Schmidt agrees. While at Thomas Ford Memorial Library, in Western Springs, Illinois, he started working with open source because it was free and easy. When the library leased a fancy new printer/photocopier/scanner, Schmidt quickly figured out how to automate scanning from the library’s rich collection of historical photos. And when he went looking for a tool to easily post the pictures online. Schmidt immediately thought of using WordPress, a free open source content management application. “[I] figured people had already solved many of the issues I would face,” Schmidt says.

But free open source software isn’t just for brave experimenters looking to push boundaries. Librarian and software developer Dan Chudnov explains that you can no more run a library without software today than you could run a library without a building in 1900. Open source software, says Chudnov is “as massive a donation of time, energy, and products you cannot afford to turn down today as Carnegie-built libraries were back then.”

The economic benefits of open source are undeniable, but Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman says it’s more than that. With an eye toward the growing role technology plays in our world. Stallman holds that the right to “run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve software” is essential to any truly free society.

Chudnov is right: Libraries can’t afford to ignore the value of open source, and those in libraries who are using it agree. But among these success stories, another theme emerges that resonates with Stallman’s message: Open source software is forming the foundation of our libraries of the future, where we all get to play bricklayer and architect.

open source, f/oss, free software, libraries, lib20, library 2.0

The most selfish thing about submitting a manuscript late is asking “When is it going to be out?” So I’ve been waiting quietly, rather than trouble Judi Lauber, who did an excellent job editing and managing the publication.

Ryan and Jessamyn each contributed a chapter, and I owe additional thank yous to the full chorus of voices that answered so many of my questions, participated in interviews, and generally made the book/journal/thing what it is.

The official announcement features a quote from Richard Stallman, the founding father of the Free and Open Source software movement.

In the 70s, computer users lost the freedoms to redistribute and change software because they didn’t value their freedom. Computer users regained these freedoms in the 80s and 90s because a group of idealists, the GNU Project, believed that freedom is what makes a program better, and were willing to work for what we believed in.

He’s speaking of software, code, but his words harmonize well with the founding purpose of libraries. A hundred years ago we embarked on a period of library construction unmatched in our previous history. We may mistakenly identify the period with the source of funding, Andrew Carnegie funded thousands, but Carnegie’s spoken belief that individuals could elevate themselves and build a stronger republic through libraries was alive in the zeitgeist.

Today, as the World Wide Web becomes ever more interwoven with the fabric of our fleshy lives, libraries have new roles and responsibilities. Just as we architected public libraries of brick and stone in the past, we must to build and support a public information architecture for the future. Open source software not only serves libraries’ immediate economic interests, such software is also aligned with the larger public mission and philosophy of libraries.

Yes, I’m a partisan, for both free — free as in free speech — and open source software and for libraries.

libraries, library, LTR, Library Technology Reports, F/OSS, open source, free software, freedom, lib20, library 2.0

VA Linux founder Larry Augustin on OSS

In Augustin’s view open source development became a necessity in the 1990s when the cost of marketing a program came to exceed the cost of creating it. “My favorite is Salesforce.com. In 1995 they spent under $10 million in R&D and over $100 million in sales and marketing. That doesn’t work.”

“Open source enables people to reach all those customers. It’s a distribution model. The people who create great software can now reach the rest of the world.”

Businesses get the most protection from the GPL, he insisted. “They get protection from competition.” The license’s insistence on reciprocity means no one can take the code you wrote, tweak it, then compete with you.

F/OSS, GPL, Larry Augustin, OSS, distribution, free software, marketing, open source