Ken -- Thanks for this info and for forwarding my initial message to the LIS-OSS mailing list. There does seem to be some overlap, and I need to study the great content on the wiki.
On a similar note, if folks are aware of other efforts in other disciplines or areas of the world, I'd appreciate hearing about them. Peter On Jul 27, 2011, at 10:03 AM, Ken Chad wrote: > The issue of building a community was also looked at in a JISC supported > SCONUL project earlier this year that culminated in the 'Open Edge, Open > source in libraries' event. It looks to me that what you are doing could be > a great way to help move the agenda forward. > > The theme of the initiative was 'building capacity to help enable open > source solutions to flourish in the HE library community'. After the event a > (JISCMail) discussion list was set up lis-...@jiscmail.ac.uk. > > The outputs of the initiative and conference now form part of the SCONUL > Higher Education Library Technology (HELibTech) wiki. This has a general > page on open source > http://helibtech.com/Open+Source and specific pages on 'community' > http://helibtech.com/open+source+community and a very preliminary start at > mapping various forms of 'capacity' (e.g. development expertise, expertise > of licensing etc). http://helibtech.com/Open+Source+Capacity > > Ken > CEO, Ken Chad Consulting Ltd > Tel +44 (0)7788 727 845. Email: k...@kenchadconsulting.com > www.kenchadconsulting.com > Skype: kenchadconsulting Twitter: @KenChad > Open Library Systems Specifications: http://libtechrfp.wikispaces.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of > Peter Murray > Sent: 18 July 2011 16:02 > To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Seeking feedback on database design for an open > source software registry > > Nate -- > > Thanks for the pointer to NITRC. There are some good interface elements > there that might be useful to emulate. > > I want to be clear that our grant mandate extends only to the FreshMeat > registry functionality. Source code hosting is definitely out of scope for > what we are doing. > > Building community will be hard, particularly because the intent of the > registry isn't for just developers themselves but also for any library that > is interested in applying open source solutions to their library needs. It > doesn't mean that the library will be developing or running the software > themselves (that is where the "Provider" entity comes in, and it is a point > that distinguishes this registry from FreshMeat and NITRC). > > > Peter > > On Jul 17, 2011, at 11:22 PM, Nate Vack wrote: >> >> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Peter Murray <peter.mur...@lyrasis.org> > wrote: >>> On Jul 15, 2011, at 2:59 PM, Mike Taylor wrote: >>>> >>>> Isn't this pretty much what FreshMeat is for? >>>> http://freshmeat.net/ >>> >>> It is similar in concept to Freshmeat, but the scope is limited to > library-oriented software (which might be too use-specific for Freshmeat and > certainly harder to find among the vast expanse of non-library-oriented > stuff). >> >> You might look at NITRC[1], which has tried very hard to do the same >> thing for neuroscience software in addition to providing project >> hosting like Sourceforge. They get funded by some federal grant >> thing[2]. >> >> Unfortunately, they've also found that the world wasn't really looking >> for a site to review and host a small subset of open-source projects, >> so their usage isn't high. They've convinced some projects to come >> live in their domain, so they seem to attract enough funding to stay >> online, but they've never succeeded in becoming much of a community. >> And the "people who do neuroscience" crowd is probably two orders of >> magnitude larger than the "people who do open-source in libraries" >> crowd -- so building a vibrant community will be even harder in this >> case. >> >> The real problem for me is that their site doesn't seem to warrant >> enough attention to really be made usable or stay up reliably. So if >> you want to get software that's hosted only by them, it can be really >> frustrating. It's like a crappy FreshMeat combined with a crappy, >> unreliable Sourceforge. >> >> My ultimate take: you can probably do something more interesting with >> your grant money than building a FreshMeat-alike. >> >> Either way, you might talk to the NITRC folks about their experiences -- Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.org 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/
