Re: Is this a realistic position to take? (was "On building catalog software systems")

From: Sperr, Edwin <sperr_at_nyob>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:40:06 -0400
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Mark says:

>Every company I worked for in this business is gone.  And outside of
those companies,
>I watched the entire evolution - >and dissolution - of my alma mater's
(U. of Missouri)
>home-grown ILS in favor of commercial product precisely because that
University wanted
>to get out of the software development business.  The same thing
happened at UCLA with Orion.
>And at U. of Chicago with Notis.  And at Harvard with Hollis (which was
their hot-roded
>version of Notis).  And in Florida at the FU, FSU and the community
colleges.
>If I tried another 10 minutes I could think of at least 15 more
examples.

>The spirit in your note is admirable.  How do we turn it into a viable
product?

One model that *might* work is that of traditional open-source projects.
For example, it would be silly for institution X to roll (and maintain)
their own web-server software, but using Apache is a very rational
choice.

Maybe something like DSpace or Fedora could serve as an example?

Ed Sperr
http://marginalist.blogsome.com
Received on Wed Jun 21 2006 - 13:45:51 EDT