Hi Kylie,
How does open source software “work” exactly for K12 schools?
Open source software can work just like other software, the difference
is that you have more options--you have the freedom to develop your
own expertise with running and using the software, or paying someone
else to do it, or some combination of the two.
For Evergreen (and Koha), there are multiple organizations (commercial
companies, cooperatives, libraries, etc.) that offer support, hosting,
customization, training, etc. for the software. Not a single one of
these entities "owns" the software, which is freely licensed for use,
distribution, and modification.
There are also online (and sometimes offline) communities (like this
one), comprised of people (and companies and organizations) that use,
develop, test, document, and make suggestions about the software.
They collaborate and help each other use and improve the software, but
it's essentially a volunteer effort. The software license empowers
the community.
What’s the implementation process like?
This can vary depending on who is doing the work. Generally, you
decide whether you want or need to start from scratch with cataloging
your inventory and registering your patrons/students/users, or if you
want to migrate data from an existing system, or some combination of
the two. For some scenarios, it can happen quickly, for others, it
may take a couple of months. There will typically be a project plan.
Where is the software hosted?
A running instance of the software in use by a hypothetical library?
It could be hosted at a datacenter by a hosting company. Or it could
be hosted in-house (or at a datacenter) by a local IT department.
There are no restrictions here, and a lot of options. Some companies
will even support a library that runs the software locally.
What are the greatest benefits of Evergreen?
It has to be the people and how their efforts all add together to make
a larger whole. You _could_ treat Evergreen just like a piece of
proprietary software and pay some vendor or consultant to manage all
the details for you. But you'd get the most _benefit_ from
interacting with the community, sharing your ideas, your expertise,
your difficulties, because this sharing will have a larger impact and
ultimately make the software better, even if you don't funnel money
directly into improvements by paying someone to do development (which
is a nice option to have).
From a technical/feature-set mindset, Evergreen is built for
scalability, for large consortia. It can handle a huge amount of data
and complexity. It may be overkill for a K12. Yet a lot of smaller
libraries use and are very happy with Evergreen.
How do upgrades, etc. work?
This too can vary, particularly depending on who is doing the work and
how the software has been configured. Evergreen _can_ be deployed in
such a way that minor upgrades can happen seamlessly without any
downtime, and major upgrades very quickly (while allowing for a
read-only view of the catalog and SIP interface during the upgrade).
What are the potential challenges of using open source software?
From a technical standpoint, it's not much different from proprietary
software, though proprietary software can have its own challenges.
Any type of change can be hard for folks. In the past, there would be
a lot of "FUD" cast against open source software, and there may still
be pockets of that. These days, in my opinion, open source is
ubiquitous, though often used behind the scenes. Even proprietary
vendors often use open source tools and components, like Linux, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, Apache, Perl, etc. They benefit from the open communities
behind these, and libraries can benefit from having this same openness
be higher in their technology "stack".
Can anyone think of anything else we should tell Kylie?
