Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
I think this is a good idea. However, I wonder if the number of contributions from those other than the sponsoring institution or original developer might also be considered when evaluating open source software? Contributions come in many forms -- code, design, testing, and documentation to name a few. The sustainability and evolution of software is probably more important than its initial popularity. Libraries have struggled to work together on the maintenance of these tools, despite the fact that the distributed workload argument is often cited as a reason to move toward open source. Even though I believe those who develop cool tools should be rewarded for their vision and hard work, I would lean toward rewarding developers involved in projects which remain active over time, and provide sustained value to the community. In this sense it would be the software that gets the award, and by proxy, anyone who had a hand in developing it. -Shaun Ellis Web Applications Developer Rutgers University Libraries On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: As a community, let's establish the Code4Lib Open Source Software Award. Lot's of good work gets produced by the Code4Lib community, and I believe it is time to acknowledge these efforts in some tangible manner. Our profession is full of awards for leadership, particular aspects of librarianship, scholarship, etc. Why not an award for the creation of software? After all, the use of computers and computer software is an essential part of our day-to-day work. Let's grant an award for something we value -- good, quality, open source software. While I think the idea of an award is a laudable one, I have more questions than answers about the process of implementing it. Is such a thing sustainable, and if so, then how? Who is eligible for the award? Only individuals? Teams? Corporate entities? How are awardees selected? Nomination? Vote? A combination of the two? What qualities should the software exemplify? Something that solves a problem for many people? Something with a high cool factor? Great documentation? Easy to install? Well-supported with a large user base? Developed within the past year? As a straw man for discussion, I suggest something like the following: * Regarding selection, I suggest there be a committee who solicits nominations and selects the awardee(s). As the years go by an individual from the committee drops off and the/an awardee becomes a member. * Regarding who is eligible, I suggest it be individuals, teams, or corporate entities. Awardees must be willing to serve on the next year's nominating committee. * Regarding what is eligible, I suggest the software be open source, directly library-related, and developed within the past two years. * Regarding the timing, I suggest this be an annual award given at each Code4Lib conference. These are just suggestions to get us started. What do you think? Consider sharing your thoughts as comments below, in channel, or on the Code4Lib mailing list. -- Eric Lease Morgan University of Notre Dame
[CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
I also think this is a good idea. I'd like to comment on the straw man: * Regarding who is eligible, I suggest it be individuals, teams, or corporate entities. Awardees must be willing to serve on the next year's nominating committee. Awardees should be changed to nominees: If you are nominated and not willing to server on next year's committee, then you must resign from the process before the award is given out. I am not sure about corporate entities: I do think the teams from a corporate entity should be eligible, but the organization as-a-whole should not get the award. Instead we want to recognize those individuals in the corporate entity who actually built (and likely championed) the software. I think this has more importance and is more consistent with the values of the community. * Regarding what is eligible, I suggest the software be open source, directly library-related, and developed within the past two years. 1 - Truly Open Source: only using a license recognised by OSI[1] is acceptable. Let's be explicit to avoid confusion. 2 - I would suggest first released in the last 3 years. This supports new activities, and gives them more chance to get traction in the community. Sometimes things immediately take off; other times they take time to make it. 3 - Directly library related is problematic. It could rule out some significant contributions. I would instead say something like Directly impacting libraries. * Regarding the timing, I suggest this be an annual award given at each Code4Lib conference. Sounds good. -Glen Newton [1]http://www.opensource.org/ -- Glen Newton | glen.new...@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Researcher, Information Science, CISTI Research NRC W3C Advisory Committee Representative http://tinyurl.com/yvchmu tel/tél: 613-990-9163 | facsimile/télécopieur 613-952-8246 Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) National Research Council Canada (NRC)| M-55, 1200 Montreal Road http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ Institut canadien de l'information scientifique et technique (ICIST) Conseil national de recherches Canada | M-55, 1200 chemin Montréal Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R6 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada -- From: Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu Sender: Code for Libraries CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:52:42 -0500 As a community, let's establish the Code4Lib Open Source Software Award. Lot's of good work gets produced by the Code4Lib community, and I believe it is time to acknowledge these efforts in some tangible manner. Our profession is full of awards for leadership, particular aspects of librarianship, scholarship, etc. Why not an award for the creation of software? After all, the use of computers and computer software is an essential part of our day-to-day work. Let's grant an award for something we value -- good, quality, open source software. While I think the idea of an award is a laudable one, I have more questions than answers about the process of implementing it. Is such a thing sustainable, and if so, then how? Who is eligible for the award? Only individuals? Teams? Corporate entities? How are awardees selected? Nomination? Vote? A combination of the two? What qualities should the software exemplify? Something that solves a problem for many people? Something with a high cool factor? Great documentation? Easy to install? Well-supported with a large user base? Developed within the past year? As a straw man for discussion, I suggest something like the following: * Regarding selection, I suggest there be a committee who solicits nominations and selects the awardee(s). As the years go by an individual from the committee drops off and the/an awardee becomes a member. * Regarding who is eligible, I suggest it be individuals, teams, or corporate entities. Awardees must be willing to serve on the next year's nominating committee. * Regarding what is eligible, I suggest the software be open source, directly library-related, and developed within the past two years. * Regarding the timing, I suggest this be an annual award given at each Code4Lib conference. These are just suggestions to get us started. What do you think? Consider sharing your thoughts as comments below, in channel, or on the Code4Lib mailing list. -- Eric Lease Morgan University of Notre Dame
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
I worry about putting the name Code4Lib on it, and implying that somehow Code4Lib collectively approves the awardee. Code4Lib can’t do much of anything collectively. But the name seems to have acquired a cachet among people who may not understand what it is. People within Code4Lib will have different opinions of what is a good project and what is an awful project, and that’s fine, Code4Lib can include diversity and disagreement, which is why I’m not sure it can put it’s stamp of approval on a project. It might be a good idea, but maybe not with the Code4Lib name. But I worry in general we don’t collectively know enough about what makes good software to give a Software of the Year honor reliably. Eric Lease Morgan wrote: As a community, let's establish the Code4Lib Open Source Software Award.
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
It might be a good idea, but maybe not with the Code4Lib name. But I worry in general we don’t collectively know enough about what makes good software to give a Software of the Year honor reliably. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, just to note, there was a breakout session at C4L where quality issues of OSS were discussed; I wrote up notes and communicated them to one of the breakout mods who contacted me post-conference. Obviously, it's a beginning, but it was an excellent conversation. I can post notes here -- I wasn't sure what to do with them. I originally had Jonathan's response when Eric raised the idea (it was the genesis of the breakout session, actually). I wonder if there aren't a couple of awards: one for new ideas, one for projects sustained past a certain point. There are interesting, important, cool ideas, and then there's the stuff that survives the long hard slog--which is where a lot of quality issues show up. I also disagree on the whole issue of forcing nominees to select the next award. Could be a way of taking a project out of the running indefinitely! Plus the library OSS community is incestuous enough without having competing projects voting on one another. (Though, an interesting problem: if we recuse people involved in projects, does that leave assessment largely to folks unfamiliar w/ OSS?) -- -- | Karen G. Schneider | Community Librarian | Equinox Software Inc. The Evergreen Experts | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712 | k...@esilibrary.com | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com | Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009! | http://www.solinet.net/evergreen
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
Karen, you should post your notes from that break-out somewhere. Take your choice of on the listserv, on www.code4lib.org, on wiki.code4lib.org, on your own blog, wherever you think is appropriate. :) I think it's good that as a community we're starting to discuss these issues more, and learn from our experiences (which we have more experience to learn from). My concerns are still there though about having such an award with the code4lib name on it. Jonathan Karen Schneider wrote: It might be a good idea, but maybe not with the Code4Lib name. But I worry in general we don’t collectively know enough about what makes good software to give a Software of the Year honor reliably. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, just to note, there was a breakout session at C4L where quality issues of OSS were discussed; I wrote up notes and communicated them to one of the breakout mods who contacted me post-conference. Obviously, it's a beginning, but it was an excellent conversation. I can post notes here -- I wasn't sure what to do with them. I originally had Jonathan's response when Eric raised the idea (it was the genesis of the breakout session, actually). I wonder if there aren't a couple of awards: one for new ideas, one for projects sustained past a certain point. There are interesting, important, cool ideas, and then there's the stuff that survives the long hard slog--which is where a lot of quality issues show up. I also disagree on the whole issue of forcing nominees to select the next award. Could be a way of taking a project out of the running indefinitely! Plus the library OSS community is incestuous enough without having competing projects voting on one another. (Though, an interesting problem: if we recuse people involved in projects, does that leave assessment largely to folks unfamiliar w/ OSS?)
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
Jonathan Rochkind writes: I worry about putting the name Code4Lib on it, and implying that somehow Code4Lib collectively approves the awardee. Code4Lib can't do much of anything collectively. But the name seems to have acquired a cachet among people who may not understand what it is. People within Code4Lib will have different opinions of what is a good project and what is an awful project, and that's fine, Code4Lib can include diversity and disagreement, which is why I'm not sure it can put it's stamp of approval on a project. I'm not so worried about that. No, we won't have unanimity on everything, but I'm sure we can reach a rough consensus that everyone can live with, and an award with CODE4LIB written on it is going to carry more weight that one with ERIC written on it. I think we should just do the best we can. (That's how we deal with all the other Impossible Problems, of course!) It might be a good idea, but maybe not with the Code4Lib name. But I worry in general we don't collectively know enough about what makes good software to give a Software of the Year honor reliably. The Motion Picture Academy doesn't collectively know enough about what makes good movies to give a Best Picture Oscar reliably, either, but that doesn't stop them taking their best guess. _/|____ /o ) \/ Mike Taylorm...@indexdata.comhttp://www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ Examining Work No 88, A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball (1995), the viewer is thrust into a conceptual space similar to that evoked by looking at a shovel or a collection of vacuum cleaners -- art critic Will Kwan.
[CODE4LIB] Notes from the OSS Evaluation Breakout Session, C4L 2009 c4l09
Code4Lib 2009 -- February 25, 2009 Draft notes: Breakout Session: Evaluating Open Source Input welcome from attendees and anyone else. This breakout session started from an informal discussion at a C4L wine and cheese. The group brainstormed questions about questions to ask for evaluating open source. These questions are not absolutes and some of them (perhaps many of them) will elude clearly objective answers. Also, again and again, the group pointed out that the presence of a question did not translate to a requirement or a judgment — these are assessment questions, many of which will not be relevant to every project and will only translate to meaningful criteria on a selective basis. Additionally, while many of these same questions could be applied to any software, the consensus appeared to be that it was helpful to ask these questions specifically in the context of OSS. 1. “Openness” of open source a. Describe the license(s) used b. Is the code freely and publicly available? Is it easy to find? 2. Growth and growth management a. How widely is the code used? i. How many organizations are known to use it operationally ii. How many times has it been downloaded iii. Is usage information tracked and reported? b. How long has it been in use? c. How many developers are actively involved in the project? d. What is the commit activity? i. How are commits reported? ii. Can commits be tracked in real-time? How? e. Describe the enhancement process. i. Are enhancement decisions publicly available? Who decides? f. Describe bug-tracking: what tools, how bugs are evaluated and prioritized i. Is the bug-tracking system publicly available? g. Describe QA/testing processes. h. How is the software updated? i. Is there a migration path to the next version? j. Describe the development planning model. Is there upgrade planning? A commitment to a migration path? k. What tools are provided for migrations and upgrades? l. Has the project forked, and if so, describe 3. Community engagement… a. Are there user groups? How large are they? How often do they meet (f2f, virtually, etc.)? b. Discussion groups, chat channels, etc.—presence, traffic, availability c. Activity of support forum, length of support d. Other characteristics of the software community: size, diversity 4. Governance a. Describe the governance model (nonprofit, foundation, etc.) b. Is the governance transparent? Describe. 5. Code and standards a. Describe the architecture—languages, structure, etc. b. Is the project using version control? c. How available is the version control system? d. Is there a commercial support option? e. Interoperability—describe. f. Error logging and reporting—describe g. Scalability? h. Security? Encryption? i. Does it provide security auditing tools? i. How are permissions set and what are the default permissions? j. What platforms does it run on, and how easy is it to implement on each platform? k. For dependencies, does it rely on current versions of those programs? l. Does the code hew to de facto or de jure standards? Which ones? m. Are key developers active in related standards work? n. Does the code include proprietary-source codex, flash players, etc.—and how is that handled? 6. Documentation a. Is it complete? b. Current? c. Open? d. Written to standards (e.g. Docbook or DITA)? 7. Innovation and quality a. Is it cool at what it does? Is it useful? What’s its karma? Does it work well? Does it solve a problem? that needs to be solved? b. Is it easy to use? c. Is it focused on end users (including librarians, if they are the software’s end users)? d. Ease of installation? Consistent results? e. Accessibility? f. Internationalization? g. Business intelligence functions? h. Incompatibilities? i. Failures and deficiencies? j. Awards, reviews, citations? k. Certifications? -- -- | Karen G. Schneider | Community Librarian | Equinox Software Inc. The Evergreen Experts | Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712 | k...@esilibrary.com | Web: http://www.esilibrary.com | Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009! | http://www.solinet.net/evergreen
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
Jonathan Rochkind wrote: It might be a good idea, but maybe not with the Code4Lib name. But I worry in general we don?t collectively know enough about what makes good software to give a Software of the Year honor reliably. Karen Schneider wrote: On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, just to note, there was a breakout session at C4L where quality issues of OSS were discussed; I respectfully disagree: I don't see this as a software quality award. I would suggest some criteria for judging software for this award. Software that is: 1 being used by a significant portion of the community 2 filling a significant need 3 having a positive impact on the community 4 supportive others participating/collaborating 5 responsive to the community 6 (to a lesser extent) innovative 7 your criterion here I also have no problem with an award with code4lib on it. It is just saying that the awardee software has been found to be see 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... above by the code4lib award committee. -glen
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
Mike Taylor wrote: The Motion Picture Academy doesn't collectively know enough about what makes good movies to give a Best Picture Oscar reliably, either, but that doesn't stop them taking their best guess. And if the Oscars are our model, color me even more concerned. :) But the _effect_ of a 'wrong' oscar choice is, what? Somebody makes money they didn't 'deserve', people see movies they end up not liking. The effect of a 'wrong' Code4Lib award is potentially steering people the wrong way in their software choices, or in their education about what makes good software, with the Code4Lib stamp of approval on it. As Mike notes, that name carries cachet now, bizarrely enough. When we first started the Journal, I actually at first was reluctant to attach the Code4Lib name to it, because Code4Lib is such an amorphous community, it didn't seem fair to imply that the informal community had somehow given it's stamp of approval to these articles. But in general other editors and the code4lib community in general wanted Code4Lib attached, they wanted the journal to be seen as a product of the community, so good enough. Jonathan _/|____ /o ) \/ Mike Taylorm...@indexdata.comhttp://www.miketaylor.org.uk )_v__/\ Examining Work No 88, A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball (1995), the viewer is thrust into a conceptual space similar to that evoked by looking at a shovel or a collection of vacuum cleaners -- art critic Will Kwan.
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.edu wrote: And if the Oscars are our model, color me even more concerned. :) But think of the Freebase mashup opportunities -Ross.
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib open source software award
On 3/5/09 7:52 PM, Eric Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: As a community, let's establish the Code4Lib Open Source Software Award... Thank you for the feedback, and please keep it coming. I am saving the comments for future reference so I don't miss anything. -- Eric Lease Morgan
[CODE4LIB] Printed catalogs
Dear CODE4LIB, I think this sort of question would fall under the purview of this list, but if there's a better forum for my question, please let me know. I am cataloging a special collection in MARC (to take advantage of LC copy cataloging, primarily), but at the end of the project I will be producing a printed catalog for the owner of the collection. My plan is to use an XSLT stylesheet to produce the catalog from MARCXML. I already threw together a stylesheet to produce a brief HTML bibliography of the collection, so I am confident that this plan would work. We would probably use LaTeX rather than HTML for output for the final catalog, since that would make the final printing easier, not to mention index generation. My question is, has anyone done something like this? Any lessons learned the hard way, stylesheets I could model ours on, or any other advice? Thanks in advance for all your help. Regards, Jared Camins-Esakov P.S. I should mention that I am not entirely wed to the idea of using an XSLT stylesheet. It seems like the path of least resistance, but if anyone could suggest a better tool, I would be very interested to learn about it. I do have a background in programming, so I would be comfortable using C/Perl/whatever, if there were a good reason to do so. -- Jared Camins-Esakov Freelance bibliographer and archivist (cell) +1 (917) 880-7649 (e-mail) jcam...@gmail.com (web) http://www.jaredcamins.com/
Re: [CODE4LIB] Printed catalogs
If you do choose to use XSLT, the Library of Congress has a bunch of XSLTs for MARCXML which will save a tremendous amount of time for you. http://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/xslt/ Andrew On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Jared Camins jcam...@gmail.com wrote: Dear CODE4LIB, I think this sort of question would fall under the purview of this list, but if there's a better forum for my question, please let me know. I am cataloging a special collection in MARC (to take advantage of LC copy cataloging, primarily), but at the end of the project I will be producing a printed catalog for the owner of the collection. My plan is to use an XSLT stylesheet to produce the catalog from MARCXML. I already threw together a stylesheet to produce a brief HTML bibliography of the collection, so I am confident that this plan would work. We would probably use LaTeX rather than HTML for output for the final catalog, since that would make the final printing easier, not to mention index generation. My question is, has anyone done something like this? Any lessons learned the hard way, stylesheets I could model ours on, or any other advice? Thanks in advance for all your help. Regards, Jared Camins-Esakov P.S. I should mention that I am not entirely wed to the idea of using an XSLT stylesheet. It seems like the path of least resistance, but if anyone could suggest a better tool, I would be very interested to learn about it. I do have a background in programming, so I would be comfortable using C/Perl/whatever, if there were a good reason to do so. -- Jared Camins-Esakov Freelance bibliographer and archivist (cell) +1 (917) 880-7649 (e-mail) jcam...@gmail.com (web) http://www.jaredcamins.com/
[CODE4LIB] MARC-XML - Qualified Dublin Core XSLT
Hi All, Anyone have an XSLT style sheet to convert from MARC-XML to Qualified Dublin Core? I'm looking to load these into DSpace, if that makes a difference. Looks like LOC only has MARC-XML to Simple Dublin Core. This page [1] mentions a 'MARCXML to Qualified DC styles heets' developed at the University of Illinois, but the links are dead. --Dave [1] http://cicharvest.grainger.uiuc.edu/schemas.asp == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARC-XML - Qualified Dublin Core XSLT
Hey David - per my last posting in regards to MARCXML XSLTs - the LOC maintains a large collection of XSLT for MARCXML that are very thorough http://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/xslt/ Andrew On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Walker, David dwal...@calstate.edu wrote: Hi All, Anyone have an XSLT style sheet to convert from MARC-XML to Qualified Dublin Core? I'm looking to load these into DSpace, if that makes a difference. Looks like LOC only has MARC-XML to Simple Dublin Core. This page [1] mentions a 'MARCXML to Qualified DC styles heets' developed at the University of Illinois, but the links are dead. --Dave [1] http://cicharvest.grainger.uiuc.edu/schemas.asp == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARC-XML - Qualified Dublin Core XSLT
try: http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/docs/stylesheets/GeneralMARCtoQDC.xsl I searched the file title (not complete path) in Google. regards, Dana Pearson On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Walker, David dwal...@calstate.edu wrote: Hi All, Anyone have an XSLT style sheet to convert from MARC-XML to Qualified Dublin Core? I'm looking to load these into DSpace, if that makes a difference. Looks like LOC only has MARC-XML to Simple Dublin Core. This page [1] mentions a 'MARCXML to Qualified DC styles heets' developed at the University of Illinois, but the links are dead. --Dave [1] http://cicharvest.grainger.uiuc.edu/schemas.asp == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] MARC-XML - Qualified Dublin Core XSLT
Look here: http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/docs/stylesheets/GeneralMARCtoQDC.xsl Kind regards, Tom -- Thomas G. Habing Research Programmer Grainger Engineering Library Information Center University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Walker, David wrote: Hi All, Anyone have an XSLT style sheet to convert from MARC-XML to Qualified Dublin Core? I'm looking to load these into DSpace, if that makes a difference. Looks like LOC only has MARC-XML to Simple Dublin Core. This page [1] mentions a 'MARCXML to Qualified DC styles heets' developed at the University of Illinois, but the links are dead. --Dave [1] http://cicharvest.grainger.uiuc.edu/schemas.asp == David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu
