Don’t worry Matt, you’re not the last one to know - I guess I am

Roy Schestowitz pointed to this post about the Kindle’s operating system today: Linux. I didn’t know that. Somehow I missed the memo last year when Robert Love wrote about his discovery of Linux at the heart of the Kindle.

I had written about how the Kindle’s content strategy reminded me of open source, but I had no idea that the software running the device was open source.

Pretty darn neat! I’m actually waiting for the new version before starting to wish for a Kindle I’m still stuck on my print books.

I signed up for the Sweetcron mailing list a while ago to keep up with this open source lifestream software. Today I find out that the beta has been released:

Sweetcron is now available for download. I’m only announcing it to this list for now - don’t you feel special?

It’s an open source project so you can grab the download from here:
http://code.google.com/p/sweetcron/downloads/list

Ongoing documentation is here, but it should be enough to get you started:
http://code.google.com/p/sweetcron/w/list

And finally…if you’re having trouble with installing Sweetcron, lets use this discussion group:
http://groups.google.com/group/sweetcron/topics
I’ll keep an eye on the group and try to help as much as I can (but I do have to sleep sometimes).

Cheers and have fun!
Yongfook
http://www.yongfook.com
http://www.sweetcron.com

Technorati Tags: sweetcron

Casey is awesome!!

The rights to my Library Technology Report on Open-Source Software for Libraries have reverted back to me, so I’m posting the text online under a CC-BY-SA license.

Make sure you bookmark, read and share this very handy guide!!

Somehow I missed this announcement. Villanova has rolled out their new OPAC using VuFind.

Yesterday a librarian pointed me to an interesting sounding new open source tool.

Alfresco is the Open Source Alternative for Enterprise Content Management (ECM), providing Document Management, Collaboration, Records Management, Knowledge Management, Web Content Management and Imaging.

Is anyone using this product? Or have you tested it? I’d love to hear from you - I’m wondering how I had never heard of this before!

I have mentioned governments going open source before, but now I get to repeat an announcement about a government using Koha to automate all of the government libraries.

The Government of Kerala, a tiny well-developed state lying in the south-west part of India, has made a decision in principle to make Koha as its official software for computerization of libraries under Government control.

Read the entire press release.

Technorati Tags: koha

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.