INLS 490-121: Collaborative Writing Exercise/Open Source Development

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What the hell is open-source software?

Colford's (2008) version of Richard Stallman's four freedoms:

  • Freedom to run the software at one’s discretion;
  • Freedom to look at and modify the software’s code for one’s own purposes;
  • Freedom to give away copies of the code to help others;
  • Freedom to make the code better and make those patches available for the whole community’s benefit.

Why OSS makes sense

OSS is an extension of the philosophy of librarianship

"Like so many things librarians hold dear – information, books and library buildings themselves – OSS is open, available and visible for all to see." - Schneider (2008)

OSS means more flexibility

  • More options on the market. If you're not satisfied with your proprietary content management platform, you can install and tinker with Wordpress and decide whether you like it without having to commit.
  • Customization. Given access to software code, you can look at it, change it to suit your needs, and make it your own.
  • Potential for more productivity. Often, the inflexibility of proprietary software leads people to create workarounds in the software. When you have access to the software code, you can change how things are done. OSS can help you go from "work is workarounds" to "work is work."
  • Build your own. Beyond customization, the ability to create your own software is always there. If nothing on the market works for you, build it!

Costs of OSS

Open-source software is free as in speech, free as in beer, but mostly free as in kittens.

The costs of open-source software are not far removed from costs of commercial software - Breeding has an awesome table in "The Commercial Angle" that details the cost differences between proprietary software and open-source software. For both, you need to consider the following cost factors:

  • One-time costs:
    • training
    • licensing (for proprietary software)
    • software customization - if it's proprietary, you pay the software company; if it's in-house, you pay your own programmers
    • installation - often proprietary software companies will charge a setup fee
  • Ongoing costs:
    • Physical resources - servers, electricity, cooling, backups
    • Personnel - systems administrators, coders, support staff (remotely or locally)
    • Software upgrades/maintenance - upgrades, bug fixes, code maintenance and changes

Consider that many of your costs with open-source will be in personnel. Instead of spending money on propreietary licensing year after and year, you can instead put that money into an employee to manage the open source software you have. Another employee is always going to be a more versatile resource than a software license.

Stumbling blocks to OSS adoption in libraries

Old-school administrators

Colford (2008) argues that administrators are hesitant to adopt open-source software because there is no vendor that can be held responsible and accountable for software maintenance and support. Yet others, Colford says, are philosophically locked in to the proprietary software model, claiming that “you get what you pay for” with open-source software. Ayre (2008) agrees and calls libraries' dependence on proprietary software “learned helplessness.”

Scared tech departments

Askey (2008) calls out library software developers and claims eight reasons OSS development can be stymied in libraries when coders have the wrong attitudes about their craft (lifted verbatim from Code4Lib):

  • perfectionism – unless the code is perfect, we don’t want anyone to see it
  • dependency – if we share this with you, you will never leave us alone
  • quirkiness – we’d gladly share, but we can’t since we’re so weird
  • redundancy – we think your project is neat, but we can do better
  • competitiveness – we want to be the acknowledged leader
  • misunderstanding – a fundamental inability to understand how an open source community works

Facilitating OSS in your library

Askey (2008) and Ayre (2008), among others, call for change from all levels:

  • Library technologists should learn more about open-source, not be afraid to contribute their code, and become active in the community.
  • Library IT directors should learn about the costs of OSS, support employees interested in OSS, and get over their fear of failure.
  • Library administrators should educate themselves on OSS and support open-source software development by rewarding their employees' contributions to open-source projects.
  • Library schools should educate their students on IT concepts like open source, and should produce librarians who have software development skills.

Library OSS resources

  • Code4Lib, a community of open-source library software developers. Ther is an active discussion list and quarterly open-access journal.
  • OSS4Lib, a compendium of open-source software for libraries.

References

Askey, D. (2008). We love open-source software. No, you can't have our code. Code4Lib Journal, 1(5).

Ayre, L. B. (2008, July 10). Ten years of learned helplessness coming to an end. Mentat [blog].

Breeding, M. (2008a). The commercial angle. (Chapter 2). Library Technology Reports,11(5).

Breeding, M. (2008b). The viability of Open Source ILS. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 35(2).

Chudnov, D. (2007). The future of FLOSS in libraries. Information Tomorrow: Reflections on Technology and the Future of Public and Academic Libraries. Medford, N.J: Information Today, Inc. 19-30.

Colford, S. (2008). Explaining free and open source software. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 35(2).

Krichel, T. (2009). From open source to open libraries. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 35(2).

Nonprofit open source initiative. Choosing and using FLOSS Primer.

Pyati, A.K. (2008). Open source software and libraries. Information Technology in Libraries: New Critical Approaches (G. Leckie & J. Buschman, Eds.). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. 205-220.

Schneider, K. G. (2008). The thick of the fray: Open source software in libraries in the first decade of this century. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 35(2).