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Exactly! OCLC already knows they are the only game in town, that is what drove them to the new pricing scheme, so what is to stop them from jacking up prices even more? They are the Gold, Silver, and Bronze standard, so maybe it is time to develop an alternative, in the hope it will garner vendor support. //Riley Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 31, 2014, at 6:12 PM, "Salazar, Christina" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > I think though that razor thin budgets aside, the EZProxy using community is vulnerable to what amounts to a monopoly. Don't get any ideas, OCLC peeps (just kiddin') but now we're so captive to EZProxy, what are our options if OCLC wants to gradually (or not so gradually) jack up the price? > > Does being this captive to a single product justify community developer time? > > I think so but I'm probably just a damn socialist. > >> On Jan 31, 2014, at 1:36 PM, "Tim McGeary" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> Even with razor thin budgets, this is a no brainer. May they need decide >> between buying 10 new books or license EZProxy? Possibly, but if they have >> a need for EZProxy, that's still a no brainer - until a solid OSS >> replacement that includes as robust a developer /support community comes >> around. But again, at $500/year, I don't see a lot of incentive to invest >> in such a project. >> >> >> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Riley Childs <[log in to unmask]>wrote: >> >>> But there are places on a razor thin budget, and things like this throw >>> them off ball acne >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Jan 31, 2014, at 3:32 PM, "Tim McGeary" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>> >>>> So what's the price point that EZProxy needs to climb to make it more >>>> realistic to put resources into an alternative. At $500/year, I don't >>> even >>>> have to think about justifying it. At 1% (or less) of the cost of >>> position >>>> with little to no prior experience needed, it doesn't make a lot of sense >>>> to invest in an open source alternative, even on a campus that heavily >>> uses >>>> Shibboleth. >>>> >>>> Tim >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> >>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Not only that, but it's also expressly designed for the purpose of >>> reverse >>>>> proxying subscription databases in a library environment. There are >>> tons >>>>> of things vendors do that would be incredibly frustrating to get working >>>>> properly in Squid, nginx, or Apache that have already been solved by >>>>> EZProxy. Which is self-fulfilling: vendors then cater to what EZProxy >>> does >>>>> (rather than improving access to their resources). >>>>> >>>>> Art Rhyno used to say that the major thing that was inhibiting the >>>>> widespread adoption of Shibboleth was how simple and cheap EZProxy was. >>> I >>>>> think there is a lot of truth to that. >>>>> >>>>> -Ross. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Kyle Banerjee <[log in to unmask] >>>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>> EZproxy is a self-installing statically compiled single binary >>>>> download, >>>>>>> with a built-in administrative interface that makes most common >>>>>>> administrative tasks point-and-click, that works on Linux and Windows >>>>>>> systems, and requires very little in the way of resources to run. It >>>>>> also >>>>>>> has a library of a few hundred vendor stanzas that can be copied and >>>>>> pasted >>>>>>> and work the majority of the time. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To successfully replace EZproxy in this setting, it would need to be >>>>>>> packaged in such a way that it is equally easy to install and >>> maintain, >>>>>> and >>>>>>> the library of vendor stanzas would need to be developed as apache >>>>> conf.d >>>>>>> files. >>>>>> >>>>>> This. The real gain with EZProxy is that configuring it is crazy easy. >>>>> You >>>>>> just drop it in and run it -- it's feasible for someone with no >>>>> experience >>>>>> in proxying or systems administration to get it operational in a few >>>>>> minutes. That is why I think virtualizing a system that makes accessing >>>>> the >>>>>> more powerful features of EZProxy easy is a good alternative. >>>>>> >>>>>> kyle >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Tim McGeary >>>> [log in to unmask] >>>> GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary >>>> 484-294-7660 (cell) >> >> >> >> -- >> Tim McGeary >> [log in to unmask] >> GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary >> 484-294-7660 (cell)