On Mon, 28 Dec 2009, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:

> 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?

+ How often do I have to update it to keep ahead of security exploits?

+ Does it play well with other software?  (eg, does it break under updated
   libraries and/or does the installer try to force me to update every
   library on my system to bleeding edge for no good reason?)
      (aspect #2 might fall under the 'easy to install' item)

...

You could also end up with some outdated software that meets all of the 
requirements, but is based on older standards that might not be relevant 
today.

-Joe