> As for selling v. free -- librarians want something that will be there for the foreseeable future -- they don't want their system breaking randomly because someone decided to close
> a site and go meditate on a mountain. Unfortunately, many 'free' services tend to be ephemeral. With $$, you sign a contract, and that contract has penalties for non
> performance, so the company is pretty much constrained to keep going. Not that companies have never failed libraries, but they have almost certainly done so less than 'free'
> services.
Karen,
Have you hear the famous Clay Shirky "love" speech?
http://conversationhub.com/2007/07/10/video-clay-shirky-on-love-internet-style/
Basically, sometimes the solidity is with the thing people love, not
the thing with the solid edifice. I feel quite confident Koha will be,
like PERL, supported in five years. HiP? I wouldn't bet on it. This
doesn't apply to all "free" solutions, of course.
Tim
Received on Wed Oct 01 2008 - 11:33:24 EDT