 |
 |
On Aug 5, 2011, at 6:27 PM, Peter Murray wrote: > Marshall's numbers do show an interesting up-tick in the adoption of open source, but I don't think we can call it a trend yet. The way the world looks from my vantage point is that there is still a lot of interest in open source and usefulness in a tool like the one being proposed. (I will concede to some bias on this point, though.) I concur. In this particular community (Code4Lib) open source is the norm, if not the expectation, but we are only 2,000 people out of tens of thousands. I think the majority of libraries do not possess the necessary personnel to support open source software. Similarly, I think there is a large number of existing library administrators who say, "We tried that open source thing in the beginning of my career, but we called it 'home grown systems'. It didn't pan out then, it won't pan out now." I think there are still others who say things like, "Writing and maintaining software is not our core business. Farming it out to commercial vendors, whether they use open source software or not, is financially the right thing to do." Finally, like most institutions, libraries are risk adverse places. I believe all of these factors contribute to the idea that open source software is still in the adoption phase. -- Eric Lease Morgan