** Open Preservation Foundation to provide sustainable home for JHOVE
------------------------------------------------------------
The Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) has started the process of taking
over stewardship of JHOVE (http://jhove.sourceforge.net/) , the widely-used
open source digital preservation tool.

JHOVE (JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment) provides functions to
perform format-specific identification, validation, and characterisation of
digital objects. It was originally developed by Harvard Library and JSTOR
in 2003.

OPF will be working with Portico, a member organisation, to carry out the
transfer. The JHOVE project, comprising source code and documentation, will
move to the OPF's software portfolio (
http://openpreservation.org/technology/products/) which will provide a
sustainable home. OPF will put continuous integration in place with testing
and reporting in line with the OPF Software Maturity Model (
http://openpreservation.org/technology/principles/software-maturity/). This
will facilitate development and release of patches and new modules. Portico
will be contributing code improvements that they currently use internally
as part of this process.

"The findings from our member survey show that JHOVE is the most important
digital preservation tool to our members," explains Ed Fay, Executive
Director of OPF. "Our adoption of JHOVE is a practical example of our
strategic priority to build confidence in currently available tools and
approaches."


OPF will be consulting with its members and the community in the coming
months to gather requirements and roadmap future development to ensure that
JHOVE is robust and actively maintained.


"We are happy to see JHOVE transition to a community-supported model
through the OPF," says Andrea Goethals, Manager of Digital Preservation and
Repository Services at Harvard Library. "We think that this is an important
step towards sustaining the core digital preservation tools many of our
organisations have come to rely on."


"Portico is very happy to see JHOVE formally established, with JHOVE2,
within a sustainable framework for community source," says Sheila
Morrissey, Senior Researcher at Portico. "We look forward to sharing the
enhancements and extensions we have developed with JHOVE's very extensive
community of practice and use."


"We're very pleased to see this transfer of stewardship responsibility for
JHOVE to the OPF," says Stephen Abrams, Associate Director of the
University of California Curation Center at the California Digital Library.
"It will ensure the continuity of maintenance, enhancement, and
availability between the original JHOVE system and its successor JHOVE2,
both key infrastructural components in wide use throughout the digital
library community."


"I'm very glad to see that JHOVE, which I supported for years, will
continue to be in good hands." comments Gary McGath, original developer and
active maintainer of JHOVE.


JHOVE2 (https://github.com/opf-labs/jhove2) , an open source digital
preservation tool that carries out format-aware characterisation of digital
objects, has already been moved to opf-labs in the OPF's GitHub portfolio (
https://github.com/openpreserve) . As with JHOVE, OPF will be stewarding
the software in line with its maturity model and coordinating roadmapping
and future development activities.



** About
------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard Library
http://library.harvard.edu/

Portico
http://www.portico.org/digital-preservation/

University of California Curation Center
http://www.cdlib.org/uc3/

Gary McGath
http://www.garymcgath.com/

Open Preservation Foundation
http://openpreservation.org/


Kind Regards,

-- 
Becky McGuinness | Community Manager
@openpreserve | Skype: becky.mcguinness1

*Open Preservation Foundation*
*http://openpreservation.org/ <http://openpreservation.org/>*