- No-Brainer
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Over half a million Web sites run on WordPress, an open-source content management system that can be installed in five minutes. While on the other side of the Web, Firefox, the open-source Web browser, has been downloaded over 300 million times. These are just a couple of a number of feature-rich, free tools libraries are using now.
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- In The Beginning…
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Competition among programmers was often fierce, turning into a macho contest to prove oneself so much in command of the system that one could recognize elegant shortcuts to shave an instruction or two, or, better yet, rethink the problem and devise a new algorithm which would save a whole block of instructions.
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- Open Source Takes Shape
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Stallman recognized that, as software became more important in our lives, a user’s freedom to choose how to use, modify, and improve it became more important. Rather than join the world of proprietary software, Stallman chose instead to resign from MIT to form the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to develop an operating system and related software, and promote software freedom.
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- Why Freedom Matters
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In spring 2004 the Movable Type community was shocked to discover the software they’d been using and steadily improving wasn’t as free as they’d thought. In late 1996, UC Berkeley faced that risk with SWISH, indexing software used to make Web sites and other content searchable. Developer Kevin Hughes had begun the project in 1994 at Enterprise Integration Technologies, but as the company’s interests moved on and changed hands, development slowed.
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- “Free,” “Free,” and “Open Source?”
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And that’s one of the concerns the Free Software Foundation’s Peter Brown wants to point out: “It’s not just about access, it’s about learning.”“Open source” adherents seek to emphasize the economic benefits, while “free software” advocates promote its rights and freedoms, but both groups point to the same basic tenets:the right to make copies of the program, and distribute those copies the right to have access to the software’s source code, a necessary preliminary before you can change it the right to make improvements to the program.
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- What Makes Open Source Work?
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The development of the Apache Web server offers an interesting look at how programmers will reuse code and communities can form to solve a common problem while achieving different goals. Part of Apache’s success has been its extensibility. Apache inherited NCSA httpd’s Common Gateway Interface (CGI) standard, which allowed Apache and other software to work together to serve content to Web browsers. By not having to build the components of the software that communicated with all the Web browsers visiting the site, developers could focus their attention on building the components that made their application unique.
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- Open Systems, Formats, and Standards
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It may seem ironic to describe the phone network as “smart” and the Internet as “dumb,” but that’s exactly how network engineers view them. The Internet uses sophisticated software and computers at each end of a connection to achieve its magic; the equipment in between simply passes the data without caring much about what it is. The dramatic growth of the Internet and its applications can be directly traced to this fundamental feature.
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- Using Open Source
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Open-source software is too valuable to ignore, according to librarian and software developer Dan Chudnov, who likens it to the gift of Carnegie libraries a century ago. Explaining that you can no more run a library without software today than you could run a library without a building in 1900, he says open-source software is “as massive a donation of time, energy, and products you cannot afford to turn down today as Carnegie-built libraries were back then.”
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- Building Open Source
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Using open-source software can reduce the costs of experimentation—the GNU General Public License guarantees our right to experiment with the software—and can make possible the kinds of innovations that patrons have come to expect from electronic services. Indeed, we’ve enjoyed a steady stream of prototypes demonstrating new ways of using or manipulating library data from the growing cohort programming-savvy librarians in our midst.
Oregon State University’s release of LibraryFind, “an open source metasearch application developed by librarians for libraries,” is particularly notable. To better understand how open source development in libraries works, I spoke with OSU’s Jeremy Frumkin, lead developer for LibraryFind, about the project.
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- Open-Source Software on the Desktop
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The growth of quality open-source desktop applications offers an especially valuable opportunity for libraries to improve service while spending less on software and support. This chapter will look at some of the most popular and easy-to-use open-source software applications and discuss how they can be used in a library context, either by patrons or by library staff.
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About
Note: I’m still importing and formatting content; this is not yet complete.
The May/June 2007 issue of ALA TechSource‘s Library Technology Reports focused on free and open source software. Below is the original publisher description of that issue:
“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.”
—“Linux, GNU, and Freedom,” by Richard M. Stallman, Free Software Foundation Founder
Casey Bisson, with the help of Jessamyn West and Ryan Eby, reports on open-source software (OSS) and its use and importance in libraries in the third issue of Library Technology Reports in 2007.
In “Open-Source Software for Libraries,” Bisson engagingly narrates the history of open source, explains how the OSS “movement” came about, details key players in OSS development, and discusses why and how open source can work for libraries.
Bisson also shares success stories from those in libraries using OSS including:
- how Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs, IL, utilized OSS to build its popular and interactive Western Springs History Web site (www.westernspringshistory.org), which utilizes the widely used WordPress platform; and
- why those at the Meadville (PA) Public Library (meadvillelibrary.org) started using OSS and how the librarians and library staff at that public institution have embraced and benefitted from OSS.
In addition to Bisson’s insightful and interesting discussion of OSS, this issue of LTR includes the informative chapter “Open-Source Software on the Desktop,” by community technology librarian Jessamyn West. Also, Ryan Eby, “an active member of the Code4Lib community” provides an overview of open-source server applications, including that of ILS apps Koha and Evergreen; digital library and repository software, such as DSpace and FEDORA; and OPAC replacements, such as Scriblio and SOPAC.
About the Authors
Casey Bisson, named among Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers for 2007 and recipient of a 2006 Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration for developing Scriblio (formerly WPopac), is an information architect at Plymouth State University. He is a frequent presenter at library and technology conferences and blogs about his passion for libraries, roadside oddities, and hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains at MaisonBisson.com
Jessamyn West is a community technology librarian and a moderator of the massive group blog MetaFilter.com. She lives in Central Vermont, where she teaches basic computer skills to novice computer users and librarians. She maintains an online presence at jessamyn.com and librarian.net. Her favorite color is orange.
Ryan Eby is active member of the Code4Lib community and spends his days supporting distance learners and online courses at Michigan State University. He blogs at blog.ryaneby.com and can often be found on the #code4lib IRC channel. He enjoys brewing his own beer and roasting his own coffee.
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