Did you miss OSCon? I did!! But it’s okay because TheTopTenme has posted links to over 100 presentations from the conference.

I’m not sure that this would be my list of essential open source applications, but Smashing Apps has a pretty neat list of open source software that you might want to check out.

If you have a moment, please participate in this survey by Outsell regarding the use of open source software in libraries:

Outsell, Inc. (www.outsellinc.com) is conducting research on the use of open source software in libraries and information management functions. In particular, we are exploring the use or consideration of open source software in integrated library systems (ILS).

Open source software programs are created collaboratively. Users and developers are free to share and change open source programs. Open source software differs from proprietary software which does not allow its source code to be copied or customized by unauthorized users.

Examples of ILSs which are created with open source code are Koha or Evergreen. Examples of ILSs designed with proprietary software are those offered by SirsiDynix, Ex Libris, Inmagic, etc.

We appreciate your participation in this short survey. All participants will receive a summary of the research results. All responses are confidential.

Please note: the survey will close on August 26th at midnight Pacific Time.

You can find the survey here.

I was happy to get to talk with the Library 2.0 Gang yesterday about open source.

Open Source Software has been around for many years.  Open Source components have been used to develop library systems since the late 1990’s.  Koha, acknowledged as the first fully open source library system was launched by its New Zealand based developers in 2000.   The growing interest around open source, stimulated by Koha, was given a significant boost when Georgia Public Libraries launched Evergreen in September 2006.

As those of you following me on twitter know, I wasn’t having the best Monday, so excuse my lack of eloquence.

Check it out here.

If you’re in they Cherry Hill area next week you might want to come to my class:

August 13: Tech Talk: All Grown Up: Open Source for Libraries: “Open Source” - a term you may have heard thrown about at conferences and on mailing lists - but what does it mean? This session will not only define the term “Open Source” but will show librarians exactly how it can be used within their libraries.

Learn to separate the myths from the facts, learn about the tools that are available to your libraries and most importantly learn about how open source can free you from the costs associated with many proprietary library products. Click here for complete details and registration form.

You can never have too many blogs on open source and libraries! That’s why you should subscribe to Howard County’s new Open Source blog.

Howard County Library finds open source software to be perfectly at home within the library profession - where access to information is free and unrestricted.

It has been added to my blogroll!

This is interesting:

The Open Solutions Alliance (which you might recall as one of the sponsors of the Open Source Census) has released the results of a survey it did recently looking at business trends in commercial open source. The results paint a picture of an industry segment doing well, with a few challenges looming but easy continued growth.

Although most open source proponents probably think of the code’s openness as its best feature, that was not the #1 driver for adoption of open source in the survey participants’ customers. Rather, 79% cited price as the most important reason for choosing open source solutions.

I’m wondering if the library world was consulted in this survey. I find that many library administrators seem to think that if the price is low then the product probably isn’t worth switching to.

Read the entire report at OSTATIC.

Some big news out of LibLime this AM:

ATHENS, OH and BLACKSBURG, VA–July 29, 2008 -– LibLime, the leader in open source solutions for libraries and CARE Affiliates™ announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement to sell select assets of CARE Affiliates to LibLime. The sale will include select products, related services and domain names along with associated service contracts. Final closing is scheduled for August 2008.

Read the entire press release here.

Technorati Tags: liblime

There is a rash of articles on the web this week regarding a recent study by Fortify Inc. (a software security firm) of open source software:

Companies who opt for an open source software within their organizations could be leaving themselves open to security breaches.

That’s according to software company Fortify which has researched the implementation of several open source projects and found them lacking, with one executive suggesting that they could learn from Microsoft in how to improve security.

Is anyone else giggling a little? While this may seem funny, it is something we have to take seriously. This article from PC World is one of 8 that I have read and I’m sure that there are even more out there.

Some facts on the study. First, they researched 16 (although some reports say 11) Java-based enterprise-level applications:

• Cayenne, an object-relational mapping tool.
• Hibernate, an object-relational mapping tool.
• Derby, an application server.
• Geronimo, an application server.
• Hipergate, a Web-based customer relationship management
  application.
• JBoss, an application server.
• Jonas, an application server.
• Jbopen source, an application server.
• Ofbiz, a Web-based CRM application.
• OpenJMS, a Java Message Service solution.
• OpenCMS, a content management tool.
• Resin, an application server.
• Shale, JSF Web framework.
• Struts, a Web application.
• Tomcat, a servlet engine.
• Webharvest, a Web crawler.

Next, I haven’t seen any reports where Fortify compared these results to proprietary counterparts.

The fact of the matter is that all software has security issues. And anyone using Windows or Internet Explorer knows all about that. I should mention (since I mentioned IE) that Fortify did state that open source developers should follow the model that Mozilla is using since Firefox is so well developed and secure.

I think that Cyndy Aleo-Carreira puts it best in her response to the report:

Obviously, Fortify has everything to gain with this study, as the company provides “products and services protect companies from the threats posed by security flaws in business-critical software applications.” The more security flaws Fortify finds in applications, the more money they can make from companies who need help in fixing those flaws.

What Fortify (and Network World, by taking the press release at face value) does not understand is generally, non-hackers who discover any exploits should be smart enough to fix the problem themselves. Fortify wants to make money fixing those problems, and therefore has no interest in supporting the projects by fixing the alleged errors. Fortify would probably be happy to do so as a billable effort in providing services to a paying customer, however.

With the source code freely available, anyone can submit a fix, even if the codebase is locked down to approved committers.

Having been monitoring an open source mailing list and developer community for the last 5 months, I can tell you that they are constantly considering the most secure way to resolve problems and if someone can’t come up with a good way to do it, there is always someone to pick up the slack.

The shame of it is that people will see these types of reports and just assume that all open source is insecure - and suddenly forget about that virus that made them lose all of their family pictures last year or the fact that the last time they received a patch from their proprietary vendor was 2 years ago. All software has it’s issues - it’s programmed by humans - and humans aren’t perfect, but I do have to say that I much prefer the open source development model to the others.

The Earl Gregg Swem Library is proud to announce the release of it’s Facebook application, Swem Tools to the open source community. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, the project, Facebook Athenaeum (http://code.google.com/p/facebook-athenaeum), allows libraries to quickly develop and customize a Facebook application that provides a searching interface for a library’s catalog, website, databases, or any other search target, pull RSS feeds, and provide users with the ability to show friends their location in the library.

Requirements for the application are relatively light. A set of floor plans in image form, a database compatible with the Pear DB package (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc), and PHP 5.

If you’re interested, check out the code. Any comments, questions, etc. can be posted at one of the Google groups (http://groups.google.com/group/facebook-athenaeum-users and http://groups.google.com/group/facebook-athenaeum-tech).

Awesome!! This found via Code4Lib.