 |
 |
I really like this topic, and I like how you're thinking about it. I tried to ask similar questions in an article I published in July: http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2009/w-e-b-s-i-t-e-find-out-what-it-means-to-me/ I think Jonathan and Nicole nailed it with community health, though this leads to an additional consideration that I think is more nuanced than the application/system vs library/module distinction. Scriblio and SOPAC are built on top of very healthy (from a developer community perspective) software that has been created with moderately technical end-users in mind. This also gets back to Jonathan's very good generalization of your point about LAMP: "What are its requirements and level of difficulty for deployment?" When the first few steps are as comparatively easy for non-developers as a "Five Minute WordPress Install," I think that has to count for something. Brett Bonfield On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Nicole Engard <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I'm with Jonathan on the community health, one of the things I stress > when teaching my open source classes is that the developer and user > community is essential to the success and life of the product. > > Nicole C. Engard > > On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> Quality of code in general: How well-designed is the code architecture, >> for maintenance and debugging? [This not only matters if you plan to do >> in-house development with it, but matters for predicting how likely the >> product is to stay 'alive' and continue to evolve with the times, instead of >> you just being stuck with exactly the version you first installed forever.] >> >> Developer Community: Is there a developer community around this software, >> with multiple people from multiple institutions contributing? Or is it just >> one founder maintaining it? [One founder maintaining it _can_ work fine, as >> long as that founder keeps maintaining it. MarcEdit is a great example. But >> the more of a community there is, again, the higher the reliability that the >> software will continue to evolve in the future, even if the founder bows out >> for some reason. ] >> >> A related topic: Do individual institutions do extensive local >> customization to core code, which does not end up merged back into the >> 'main' distribution? Again, this effects long-term sustainability of the >> software. >> I wrote a bit on judging one aspect of open source in a Library Journal >> article here: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6611591.html >> I also compiled some opinions from me, Bill Dueber, and others, in what >> 'good code' looks like in open source here: >> http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/Category:Patterns >> >> I could also pick nits with some of your criteria, but, hey, if they're >> important to someone they're important to someone. Some of htem are less >> important to me (For instance: "Is it deployed on LAMP" I'd generalize to >> "what are it's requirements and level of difficulty for deployment?" We are >> quite capable of deploying non-PHP solutions, but that doesn't mean that all >> non-PHP solutions are equal for ease of deployment either!. ) >> >> Eric Lease Morgan wrote: >>> >>> What qualities and characteristics make for a "good" piece of open source >>> software? And once that question is answered, then what pieces of >>> library-related open source software can be considered "best"? >>> >>> I do not believe there is any single, most important characteristic of >>> open source software that qualifies it to be denoted as "best". Instead, a >>> number of characteristics need to be considered. For example, a program >>> might do one thing and do it well, but if it is bear to install then that >>> counts against it. Similarly, some software might work wonders but it is >>> built on a proprietary infrastructure such as a closed source compiler. Can >>> that software really be considered "open"? >>> >>> For my own education and cogitation, I have begun to list questions to >>> help me address what I think is the "best" library-related open source >>> software. [1] Your comments would be greatly appreciated. I have listed the >>> questions here in (more or less) personal priority order: >>> >>> * Does the software work as advertised? >>> * To what degree is the software supported? >>> * Is the documentation thorough? >>> * What are the licence terms? * To what degree is the software easy to >>> install? >>> * To what degree is the software implemented >>> using the "standard" LAMP stack? >>> * Is the distribution in question an >>> application/system or a library/module? >>> * To what degree does the software satisfy some >>> sort of real library need? >>> What sorts of things have I left out? Is there anything here that can be >>> measurable or is everything left to subjective judgement? Just as >>> importantly, can we as a community answer these questions in light of >>> distributions to come up with the "best" of class? >>> >>> 'More questions than answers. >>> >>> [1] There are elaborations on the questions in a blog posting. See: >>> http://tinyurl.com/ybk2bef >>> >>> >> >