On Aug 3, 2011, at 11:45 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote: > Peter, if I understand you correctly, your approach seems novel. Usually open > source software developers have "scratched their itch", made their software > available to the world, and if so inclined, spent time and effort building a > community around the software. Your approach seems RFP-like. Statements of > work will be drafted by LTS. Developers (consultants) will respond, be > selected, and contracted. Software will be created.
This is insightful, Eric. The thrust of our justification to the Mellon Foundation was to help take open source from early adopt to early majority (on Everett Roger's Diffusion of Innovations scale). So while early adopters will want to scratch an itch I don't think the same can be said for the early majority. There are certainly consultants and self starters among library staff that will move the pace of adoption along, but what we also heard in surveying LYRASIS members was that they needed a location to find information about open source software and tools that they could use to evaluate it along side corporate offerings. That is the gap that this work is trying to fill. So, yeah, in building this I'm trying to bridge the gap between the two worlds with open comments on the specifications paired with contracted help to build pieces and ending with (hopefully -- certainly by intention) a site that helps projects, libraries, and support providers find themselves more easily than they can today. Peter -- Peter Murray [email protected] tel:+1-678-235-2955 Ass't Director, Technology Services Development http://dltj.org/about/ LYRASIS -- Great Libraries. Strong Communities. Innovative Answers. The Disruptive Library Technology Jester http://dltj.org/ Attrib-Noncomm-Share http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
