Open source in libraries: Marching on

Posted by Michael Giarlo on June 21, 2007

A couple of interesting stories regarding open source library projects have come out during the past few days.

First, Carl Grant, the former CEO of VTLS, is forming a new company devoted to providing and building services for open source software. The name of the company is CARe Affiliates, and they have already struck a deal with open source software provider Index Data (creators of Zebra, YAZ, YAZ Proxy, Metaproxy, Keystone, and so forth). I have worked just a bit with Carl and he seems to be a stand-up guy. Best of luck, Carl.

Second, the Mellon Foundation has approached the GPLS with great interest in the open source ILS, Evergreen. Where this is going is yet to be seen, but it's something to keep an eye on. It could be a fantastic opportunity for libraries that are frustrated with their current ILS and have the resources to commit development time. (With an assumption that the former set is vastly larger than the latter set.) This could be very exciting.

Those who still doubt that open source in libraries is a legitimate movement must find it more and more difficult to justify their arguments.

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  1. antonioG4 Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:52:22 PDT

    OSS goes marching one by one hurrah, hurrah…

    Good to see, the more successful people/companies join the OSS movement the better the software becomes. Libraries are just slow to innovate, I wonder how many billionaires there are out there who built their companies on the back of a LAMP configuration. Now, if I was only smart enough to come up with a my own software, then I would be one of them.

  2. Carl Grant Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:34:58 PDT

    Thanks Mike. We're excited to be a part of this community!

  3. Shaun Ellis Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:14:50 PDT

    It's a step in the right direction for sure. However, if libraries are not collectively developing their own OSS, I don't see how a move towards "OSS" built by third party companies is going to solve the frustrating situation with current ILS vendors. Maybe they're getting the software for free and cutting some costs, but they're still dependent on a third party for updates, fixes, and customization. What we really need is the libraries themselves to be contributing to the codebase.

  4. mjgiarlo Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:18:05 PDT

    At least with OSS products, technically inclined library folks can actually view and modify code and there is some hope of being able to share with others and commit back to the projects.

    So I don't think we need to develop our own products to be able to take advantage of OSS, though there are benefits of doing so such as owning and guiding your own destiny.

    Another advantage of vendor-supported OSS is that there is a looser coupling between the vendor and the code-base. This enables libraries to pick and choose among vendors and creates competition. It's not like III is going to help a library support a Sirsi-Dynix product or vice versa; but we already see companies like LibLime and Equinox supporting some of the same products. This will likely grow in time.

    Cost-cutting isn't part of the OSS equation, though it would seem like that's an obvious benefit. Costs are usually comparable if you account for employee time maintaining the codebase, providing support, documenting, testing, and so on.

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