Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:17 PM, K.G. Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If you think of Gartner (as I do) as a kind of IT-for-squares company... > useful information on some issues, hilariously tone-deaf on others (though > in a way that can be extremely useful if you're trying to decipher how the > "enterprise corporate brain" currently thinks)... their recent article, > "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008," is intriguing in its positive > analysis of open source. ...at the risk of upsetting *everybody*... Last I checked, this list is about code for libraries, not free/open source software for libraries. If you want to discuss OSS for libraries, you might want to move threads like this onto one of the lists about OSS for libraries, or start your own new list about OSS for libraries if there aren't already enough for you. :)
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:37 PM, Alexander Johannesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In short, another template piece where [insert your favourite thing > here] is wrapped around generic advice. Do they say anything that's > specific to what open-source is all about? Their definition on open source is described in "Toolkit: The Open Source Landscape, 2007": "Open-source software is licensed software in which the source code is distributed with the product, and the user is able to modify and redistribute derived works from this software. The open-source model is a set of principles and best practices for software development, deployment and support. At its core, the open-source movement is focused on maximizing and protecting the privileges of the user, rather than the author." ranti. -- Bulk mail. Postage paid.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 9:40 PM, K.G. Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > For those of us in the field pushing for new approaches, the Gartner report > does represent positive change. It's not that OSS isn't successful. It's > that some of us would really like it to be much more successful... Fair enough. I certainly understand the significance for OSS passionadas in organisations under MBA and committee rule, it's just infuriating that these things have to be spelled out in childish ways (which the litmus test really is all about) by conservatives for "approved benefits to the enterprise." This is partly why I left the library world, mind you, so if that report can fix up some of the glaring things that made my experience there so painful (a constant struggle of spelling things out), I might think of coming back. :) Hehehe. Alex -- --- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps -- http://shelter.nu/blog/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
> > Gartner may sound creaky but under the starchy > > language, this is pretty revolutionary advice. > > I can't agree with the "revolutionary advice" part; business leaders, > firms, advisers and abusers have been saying this already for years. > That Gartner now is on the field saying it too shows nothing except > how conservative they are; this is an old message, and certainly not > aimed at people who's doing the actual work in their organisations. No, the key is that they ARE very conservative and still influential. > The only people that Gartner now is playing to are the business > people, who will be surprised to learn that their organisations > already use (and many fully embrace) OSS, and have done so for years. Well, you and I know that two great arguments for OSS, from a school-of-Gartner point of view, are a) commercial vendors already use it in their products and b) people can make money from it. (In fact, I'm surprised they didn't make those points.) > OSS is already successful, and it's already working great even if the > MBAs don't know it. And because Gasrtner now is playing to those > people, that's why the porridge litmus test works so great; in > reality, nothing will change, which for many is the perfect advice. For those of us in the field pushing for new approaches, the Gartner report does represent positive change. It's not that OSS isn't successful. It's that some of us would really like it to be much more successful... Karen G. Schneider [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
> But that fact leads me to the thought that perhaps Gartner isn't as > revolutionary as one might think. Revolutionary *for Gartner* -- and therefore important in that sense, for the people whose opinions are shaped by the Gartner Weltanschauung. These people aren't reading NGC4LIB. (Um, neither am I, but that's another issue.) I do think Joe Lucia's post could use broader attention. "What if, in the U.S., 50 ARL libraries, 20 large public libraries, 20 medium-sized academic libraries, and 20 Oberlin group libraries anted up one full-time technology position for collaborative open source development. That's 110 developers working on library applications with robust, quickly-implemented current Web technology -- not legacy stuff." That's excellent what-iffing. For those libraries to "ante up" requires a commitment from the higher-ups. This is possible, and many library types, *to their credit,* have a fundamentally anti-Gartner disposition that lends themselves to understanding the value of such a skunk works and even contributing to such activities. But for them what don't, and who are of commercial-means-professional worldview, the Gartner report is more water dripping on stone. (It's not the only Gartner report favorable toward open source. I've read most of their reports on Web 2.0, Wikipedia, open source, etc., and while the reports are often unintentionally funny due to misreadings of the cultural zeitgeist - remember the scene from "Brother from Another Planet" where the two alien spies order beer on the rocks? - it's intriguing to watch Enterprise Daddy-O loosen up a bit on these topics.) Karen G. Schneider [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
sure wish I could read the article without registering and purchasing it :-|
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=633035&ref=g_sitelink
But that fact leads me to the thought that perhaps Gartner isn't as
revolutionary as one might think.
Cultural matches need to happen no matter the software. But the
difference with FLOSS is that it's libraries who are (or could be) doing
the cultural matching. Much the same as ILL works (after many years of
dev and lots of continuing staff time and energy), FLOSS development
could work. That idea will take time to ingrain in upper management for
sure, but I *do* see movement in that direction. Witness Joe Lucia's
post on NGC4lib in November, 2007:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.culture.libraries.ngc4lib/3424
James
K.G. Schneider wrote:
Sorry, Alexander, I disagree. Gartner may sound creaky but under the starchy
language, this is pretty revolutionary advice.
Look for a sustainable community - yes, for any product, that's key.
Cultural match - that one is an interesting observation. Introducing open
source development in organizations that have revolved around vendor-based
relationships requires change management. I happen to think that the biggest
culture shift needs to occur at the top, where it can be difficult to shift
from the smoke-filled-room model, based on scarcity and secrecy and lots of
money, to a more communitarian model, but it's also true that staff who have
always worked with traditional vendors may have to adapt engrained
practices.
The SOA-I'll yield on that one. I think there's a Gartner template that
requires the use of SOA every 500 words.
The question of OSS not built on open standards has *cough* come up just in
the past year. Of course, it could be pointed out that avoiding open
standards, period, is a bad thing, and that commercial software is rife with
such examples, far more than OSS... but still, it's not bad advice. (Cough
into your arm to avoid sharing the flu; you'll also avoid sharing other
airborne diseases, but the first statement still valid.)
The last one means figure out whether you'll hire support or build it from
within or (and perhaps this is the ideal advice) develop a blend of each.
Karen G. Schneider
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Original Message-
From: Alexander Johannesen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:37 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: CODE4LIB@listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
Let's try the litmus test for enterprisey business bullshit : porridge ;
"Recommendations for Users
* Look for a sustainable community that has a critical mass of skills
supporting porridge.
* Look for a cultural match between the porridge community and
your internal developers and user culture as it enhances communication
and perceived user satisfaction.
* Prepare an SOA that can integrate IT services from many sources,
including porridge.
* Avoid porridge that is not built on open standards.
* Make a conscious risk-based decision about whether you will depend on
internal resources or external services for your porridge
implementations."
In short, another template piece where [insert your favourite thing
here] is wrapped around generic advice. Do they say anything that's
specific to what open-source is all about?
Alex (without reading the darn article...)
--
--
-
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
-- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ---
-
--
James R. Jacobs
International Documents Librarian
Green Library
Stanford University
(650) 725-1030
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://jonssonlibrary.stanford.edu
AIM: LibrarianJames Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A library is an arsenal of liberty." Anonymous
(\
{|||8-
(/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 7:51 PM, K.G. Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sorry, Alexander, I disagree. What, is that allowed!? :) > Gartner may sound creaky but under the starchy > language, this is pretty revolutionary advice. I can't agree with the "revolutionary advice" part; business leaders, firms, advisers and abusers have been saying this already for years. That Gartner now is on the field saying it too shows nothing except how conservative they are; this is an old message, and certainly not aimed at people who's doing the actual work in their organisations. I've been in the "enterprise" for most of my life as a high-flying consultant (except my non-enterprise last few years in the library world), and currently work as both manager, developer and advisor to the largest enterprise organisations around. We've always recomended and / or used OSS, integrated the very ideal into the fabric of enterprise software development. The only people that Gartner now is playing to are the business people, who will be surprised to learn that their organisations already use (and many fully embrace) OSS, and have done so for years. (How they'll cope with that news is another story, and maybe Gartner is their coming safety blanket) Even big guys who think that only the Oracle business stack is good enough for them will be surprised to find the odd OSS project supporting their infrastructure. OSS is already successful, and it's already working great even if the MBAs don't know it. And because Gasrtner now is playing to those people, that's why the porridge litmus test works so great; in reality, nothing will change, which for many is the perfect advice. Alex -- --- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps -- http://shelter.nu/blog/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
Sorry, Alexander, I disagree. Gartner may sound creaky but under the starchy language, this is pretty revolutionary advice. Look for a sustainable community - yes, for any product, that's key. Cultural match - that one is an interesting observation. Introducing open source development in organizations that have revolved around vendor-based relationships requires change management. I happen to think that the biggest culture shift needs to occur at the top, where it can be difficult to shift from the smoke-filled-room model, based on scarcity and secrecy and lots of money, to a more communitarian model, but it's also true that staff who have always worked with traditional vendors may have to adapt engrained practices. The SOA-I'll yield on that one. I think there's a Gartner template that requires the use of SOA every 500 words. The question of OSS not built on open standards has *cough* come up just in the past year. Of course, it could be pointed out that avoiding open standards, period, is a bad thing, and that commercial software is rife with such examples, far more than OSS... but still, it's not bad advice. (Cough into your arm to avoid sharing the flu; you'll also avoid sharing other airborne diseases, but the first statement still valid.) The last one means figure out whether you'll hire support or build it from within or (and perhaps this is the ideal advice) develop a blend of each. Karen G. Schneider [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -Original Message- > From: Alexander Johannesen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 1:37 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: CODE4LIB@listserv.nd.edu > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS > > Let's try the litmus test for enterprisey business bullshit : porridge ; > > "Recommendations for Users > * Look for a sustainable community that has a critical mass of skills >supporting porridge. > * Look for a cultural match between the porridge community and >your internal developers and user culture as it enhances communication >and perceived user satisfaction. > * Prepare an SOA that can integrate IT services from many sources, >including porridge. > * Avoid porridge that is not built on open standards. > * Make a conscious risk-based decision about whether you will depend on >internal resources or external services for your porridge > implementations." > > In short, another template piece where [insert your favourite thing > here] is wrapped around generic advice. Do they say anything that's > specific to what open-source is all about? > > > Alex (without reading the darn article...) > -- > -- > - > Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps > -- http://shelter.nu/blog/ --- > -
Re: [CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
Let's try the litmus test for enterprisey business bullshit : porridge ; "Recommendations for Users * Look for a sustainable community that has a critical mass of skills supporting porridge. * Look for a cultural match between the porridge community and your internal developers and user culture as it enhances communication and perceived user satisfaction. * Prepare an SOA that can integrate IT services from many sources, including porridge. * Avoid porridge that is not built on open standards. * Make a conscious risk-based decision about whether you will depend on internal resources or external services for your porridge implementations." In short, another template piece where [insert your favourite thing here] is wrapped around generic advice. Do they say anything that's specific to what open-source is all about? Alex (without reading the darn article...) -- --- Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps -- http://shelter.nu/blog/
[CODE4LIB] Gartner on OSS
If you think of Gartner (as I do) as a kind of IT-for-squares company... useful information on some issues, hilariously tone-deaf on others (though in a way that can be extremely useful if you're trying to decipher how the "enterprise corporate brain" currently thinks)... their recent article, "Open Source in Higher Education, 2008," is intriguing in its positive analysis of open source. The recommendations are interesting (and, I think, mostly spot-on): "Recommendations for Users . Look for a sustainable community that has a critical mass of skills supporting OSS. . Look for a cultural match between the OSS community and your internal developers and user culture as it enhances communication and perceived user satisfaction. . Prepare an SOA that can integrate IT services from many sources, including OSS. . Avoid OSS that is not built on open standards. . Make a conscious risk-based decision about whether you will depend on internal resources or external services for your OSS implementations." K.G. Schneider Free Range Librarian AIM/Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://freerangelibrarian.com
[CODE4LIB] extended deadline/Dublin Core 2008
Due to a number of requests, the deadline for submissions for Dublin
Core 2008 in Berlin, Germany, has been extended to April 13.
The formal CfP is below.
We'd appreciate help from colleagues and friends forwarding this post
to appropriate lists, and apologize for any duplication in advance.
thank you very much, jane and wolfgang
CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND INITIAL CALL FOR PAPERS
DC-2008 -- International Conference on Dublin Core
and Metadata Applications
http://dc2008.de/
"Metadata for Semantic and Social Applications"
22-26 September 2008
Berlin
The annual Dublin Core conferences bring together leading
metadata researchers and professionals from around the world.
DC-2008 in Berlin will be the eighth in a series of conferences
held previously in Tokyo, Florence, Seattle, Shanghai, Madrid,
Manzanillo, and Singapore. The conference is organized jointly
by the Competence Centre for Interoperable Metadata (KIM),
Max Planck Digital Library, Gttingen State and University
Library, the German National Library, Humboldt Universitt zu
Berlin, and Dublin Core Metadata Initiative with sponsorship
from Wikimedia Deutschland.
CONFERENCE THEME
Metadata is a key aspect of our evolving infrastructure for
information management, social computing, and scientific
collaboration.
DC-2008 will focus on metadata challenges, solutions, and
innovation in initiatives and activities underlying semantic
and social applications. Metadata is part of the fabric of
social computing, which includes the use of wikis, blogs,
and tagging for collaboration and participation. Metadata
also underlies the development of semantic applications,
and the Semantic Web -- the representation and integration
of multimedia knowledge structures on the basis of semantic
models. These two trends flow together in applications such
as Wikipedia, where authors collectively create structured
information that can be extracted and used to enhance access
to and use of information sources.
Recent discussion has focused on how existing bibliographic
standards can be expressed as Semantic Web vocabularies
to facilitate the integration of library and cultural
heritage data with other types of data. Harnessing the
efforts of content providers and end-users to link, tag,
edit, and describe their information in interoperable ways
("participatory metadata") is a key step towards providing
knowledge environments that are scalable, self-correcting,
and evolvable.
DC-2008 will explore conceptual and practical issues in the
development and deployment of semantic and social applications
to meet the needs of specific communities of practice.
Papers, reports, and poster submissions are welcome on a wide
range of metadata topics, such as:
+ Metadata generation (methods, tools, and practices)
+ Semantic Web metadata and applications
+ Conceptual models and frameworks (e.g., RDF, DCAM, OAIS)
+ Social tagging
+ Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) and Simple Knowledge
Organization Systems (SKOS) (e.g., ontologies, taxonomies,
authority files, folksonomies, and thesauri)
+ Metadata in e-Science and grid applications
+ Metadata interoperability and internationalization
+ Metadata quality, normalization, and mapping
+ Cross-domain metadata uses (e.g., recordkeeping,
preservation, institutional repositories)
+ Vocabulary registries and registry services
+ Domain metadata (e.g., for corporations, cultural memory
institutions, education, government, and scientific fields)
+ Application profiles
+ Accessibility metadata
+ Search engines and metadata
+ Metadata principles, guidelines, and best practices
+ Bibliographic standards (e.g., Resource Description and Access
(RDA), Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR),
subject headings) as Semantic Web vocabularies
SUBMISSIONS:
All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the International
Program Committee and published in the conference proceedings.
The Committee is soliciting paper contributions of the
following three types:
-- FULL PAPERS (8 to 10 pages)
Full papers either describe innovative original work in
detail or provide critical, well-referenced overviews of key
developments or good practice in the areas outlined above.
Full papers will be assessed using the following criteria:
o Originality of the approach to implementation
o Generalizability of the methods and results described
o Quality of the contribution to the implementation community
o Significance of the results presented
o Clarity of presentation
-- PROJECT REPORTS (4 pages)
Project reports describe a specific model, application, or
activity in a concise, prescribed format. Project reports
will be assessed using the following criteria:
o Conciseness and completeness of technical description
o Usability of the techn
