“Open Source” Software “Open Source” Software

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By Richard W. Boss

There are tens-of-thousands of open source software products, many hundreds of which are in use by libraries. This PLA Tech Note focuses on only a small number of products, those that appear to be the most widely adopted. It is a companion to another entitled “Open Source” Integrated Library System Software, therefore, those products are not discussed herein.

The term “open source” refers to software that is free and that includes the original source code used to create it so that users can modify it. It also includes the right of redistribution; therefore, there may be products that are based on other open source products, including proprietary products.

While open source software may be free, a developer or distributor may charge for services, including custom programming, installation, training, technical support, and hosting services for those who do not want to implement and maintain the software in- house. Some distributors of open source software are for-profit organizations and may charge prices for their services comparable to those charged by proprietary software vendors.

Not all “free” software is “open source.” For example, Google offers a number of applications software products without charge, but it is in complete control of development. Source code is not included and there is no right of distribution. Google covers the cost of development and support by selling on-line advertising.

The perceived advantages of open source software are:

Ability to tailor to fit local needs

The availability of the source code means that a user or a community of users can modify and enhance the software to more closely fit its own needs. Unlike with proprietary products, the development priorities are set by the user or community of users, not a vendor. The user or user community is also able to set its own priorities for bug fixes.

No restriction on use

Unlike proprietary software, there are no contractual restrictions on how the software is used. While some developers use the GNU General Public License that assures users that they have the right to distribution and those to whom they distribute also have the right to modify and distribute, other developers merely declare that their software is in the public domain. A subsequent user may, therefore, decide to protect the enhancements that it makes by copyrighting them. Some developers have chosen to use the LGPL (Lesser GPL), a version of the GPL license that permits use in proprietary programs. The GNU General Public License is strongly recommended by the Free Software Foundation, the creator of the GNU GPL. If the license is not the GNU GPL, there may be restrictions on use.

Low cost

There is no charge for the software itself, therefore, the capital outlay required by proprietary software is avoided. The major costs are ongoing development and maintenance. If the number of users is large, and they share their efforts, each user’s cost is reduced. However, if the number is small or a user does a lot of tailoring to fit unique local needs that are not shared by other users, the cost can escalate.

The potential disadvantages of open source software are:

Unanticipated cost

With few exceptions, open source software tends to be less complete than proprietary software; therefore, a library may find that it needs to do a great deal more work than anticipated to adapt the software to local needs. If local development is undertaken, new open source releases may not be compatible with what has been done locally unless the changes are incorporated into a release of the software of the user community. Considerably more staff expertise and time may be required to use it. It is, therefore, essential to compare costs for multiple options, rather than assuming that the open source solution will be less costly over time.

Lack of coordination

The decentralized development of open source software means that progress can be chaotic and there may be delays in addressing bugs and in completing planned enhancements. This may increase the burden on a library that decides to proceed on its own. Not only may there be lack of coordination within an open source development project, there may be little attention paid to integration with other applications.

Inadequate training and technical support

No training comes with most open source products. Documentation tends to be limited and aimed at developers. There usually is limited technical support, especially for users of the software. However, a few open source products do have training and technical support available commercially for a fee.

Lack of participation

Too few participants can cause the development effort to become too expensive for one or a handful of committed parties.

Lack of guarantees and remedies

Unlike turnkey systems using proprietary software, there are no guarantees of quality or performance for open source software. Vendors that provide support services for open source products do offer some guarantees, but no remedies similar to those offered by vendors of proprietary products. Only purchasers of proprietary products can expect financial and other contractual remedies for poor response times and loss of functionality.

The exception is services purchased from a vendor that uses open source software to provided SAAS (software as a service) for a fee using open source software on its servers accessible by the customer using Web browsers.

Scalability and speed

Open source software may not offer the scalability and speed of proprietary software because many the easy-to-use and general-purpose programming languages that are often used are not very scalable and are slower than other languages. For example, the Perl programming language that is widely used in the development of open source software is not very scalable because every script that is run launches separate programs on the server. This means that if one has 100 simultaneous users accessing documents, one could be running 100 to 1,000 extra programs on the server. Furthermore, time is needed to start the Perl program on every script request. Perl is also slow, running as much as 98 percent slower than various versions of C.

The following criteria have been used to select the software described in this PLA Tech Note:

1. There is current development activity. 2. Current source code and documentation are available for downloading under the GNU General Public License or a comparable license that has few if any restrictions on use. 3. Scalability is not an issue—there is no risk of database size or activity levels exceeding the capacity of the software. 4. The software has been successfully used in libraries.

Most Widely Adopted, Including by Libraries

Some open source software has been so widely adopted and has so much development support that there is virtually no risk in choosing it. The most widely adopted include the Apache HTTP Server, Linux operating system, the MySQL database management system, the Firefox browser, and Open Office. The last changed hands in the second quarter of 2011, therefore, the terms under which it is available may change. Uncertainty about its future has led to the development of LibreOffice.

Apache HTTP Server is an effort to develop and maintain an open source HTTP server for popular operating systems such as UNIX, Linux, and Windows NT. It has been the most popular Web server on the Internet since 1996. The developer is the Apache Software Foundation. The product is licensed under the Apache Foundation's own license, one more restrictive than the GNU LPL. Downloads are available at http://download.nextag.com/apache/. Linux, an operating system, is the most widely used open source software in the world. Approximately 40 percent of all of the world’s servers are Linux-based. Not only is Linux functionally rich, but it is very stable and secure. It also is supported by a number of commercial firms that offer technical support and training materials. These include Borland, Canonical, IBM, Macromedia, Novell, and Red Hat. Linux is in widespread use in business and industry not only on servers, but also on clients and desktop PCs. One of its most effective implementations in libraries has been “thin clients,” the mounting of Linux on low-end PCs and drawing the operating system and applications software from a Linux server via the network. Linux can be downloaded by qualified developers from www.osdl.org/ but most potential users will need to download any one of a number of versions from any one of a score of distributors. A directory is available at www.linux.org/. Many of the versions include a full suite of desktop and office productivity software with file formats compatible with those from Microsoft and Apple.

An attractive option for libraries that have old desktop computers is Ubuntu, a stripped down version of Linux that is suitable for mounting on older machines. It includes a Web browser, presentation, spreadsheet, and instant messaging applications. Ubuntu is not a popular choice for servers as only Sun Microsystems, now a division of Oracle, supports it among server manufacturers. The URL is www.ubuntu/com/. There is also light version of Ubuntu called Libuntu that is ideal for mounting on Pentium II or Celeron machines that have as little as 128 MB of RAM. The URL is www.lubuntu.com/.

MySQL, a multi-user DBMS, was developed by MySQL AB, a Swedish for-profit company, in the mid-1990s. The company became a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems and a product of Oracle after that company acquired Sun. There are approximately 20 million installations of the DBMS on a wide variety of operating systems and hardware platforms. Unlike many open source software products, MySQL is written in C and C++, thus it is very stable, scalable, and efficient. The basic product, MySQL Community, is available for free download under the GNU General Public License, but a more comprehensive, supported enterprise version is available for sale from the Sun Microsystems unit of Oracle. The URL is www.mysql.com/.

Firefox, a browser developed by Mozilla, has millions of users worldwide. It not only offers a more secure browsing experience that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, it has hundreds of plug-ins that can be used to tailor the browser to local needs. It is available for free download from www.mozilla.org/download/.

OpenOffice.org is an office suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. It can read and write files from other office software, including that produced by Microsoft. First developed by StarDivision and later acquired and further developed as StarOffice by Sun Microsystems, and then acquired by Oracle when it purchased Sun, it was donated to the Apache Software Foundation in June of 2011. The software has an open development process that allows anyone to report bugs, request new features, or actually enhance the software. It can be downloaded from www.openoffice.org/ However, the URL may change under ASF management. On September 28, 2010, key members of the OpenOffice.org Project formed a new group called the “Document Foundation,” and made available a re-branded fork of OpenOffice called LibreOffice. The URL for it is www.libreoffice.org/. Other Products by Application

Booking System

WUBS (Web user Booking System) was developed at Britain’s Loughborough University Library as a web-based product to allow online booking of resources such as rooms and PCs directly by end users. The URL is http://sourceforge.net/projects/wubs/.

Digital Library and Repository Software

DSpace captures data in any format—text, audio, video, and data—and distributes it over the web. It indexes the data so that users can search and retrieve the items. To submit content, the contributor must belong to the DSpace community. Submission is simple, consisting of uploading the file(s) and adding descriptive information such as author, title, publication information, and keywords. See http://www.dspace.org/.

Fedora is a flexible tool for managing and delivering digital content. It supports multiple views of each digital object and the relationships among digital objects. It can be downloaded from www.fedora.info/.

Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It has been developed in cooperation with UNESCO. For that reason, it is available in multiple languages. UNESCO is running training workshops around the world on the use of the software. The URL is www.greenstone.org/.

Instant Messaging

Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is a multi-platform instant messaging client. It supports many commonly used instant messaging protocols, therefore, allowing the users to log into various different services from one application. Some three million users were estimated to be using Pidgin as of late 2007. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The URL is http://pidgin.im/.

Media Player

VLC Media Player is a multimedia player for audio and video formats; including MPEG 1, 2, and 4; DivX, mp3, ogg, DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can be used on any one of a score of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, and several versions of Linux. The URL is http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

Metasearch

Library Find is an open source application that was developed by the Oregon State University Libraries. It includes not only federated searching, but also built-in OpenURL resolver. It can also be used to locally index collections. While functionally rich, the software's principal developer was pursuing a PhD in 2010 and 2011. It has, therefore, been getting only bug fixes. It can be downloaded from http://libraryfind.org/. eXtensibleCatalog is an open source suite of four software components that can be used to search library resources, including a library’s integrated library system. It was originally developed at the University of Rochester Library, but there are now several other development partners. The metadata management and connectivity components, which are the most widely use, is available free at www.extensiblecatalog.org/.

PC Reservation/Time Management

Groovix PAC has been designed as a complete solution for library public computers, including SIP2 authentication, reservations, and time management. It can be downloaded free of charge under the GNU GPL from http://groovix.com/solutions_public_access.html/.

Single Sign-on

Shibboleth is an open source software package for web single sign-on across or within organizational boundaries. It allows its users to make authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a manner that protects privacy and avoids each resource requiring its own ID and password. The URL is http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/.

Sound Editor

Audacity is software for recording and editing sounds. It includes filters for removing static, hiss, hum, and other constant background noises from analog recordings. It is available for a wide variety of operating systems. The URL is http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.

Spreadsheet

Sheetster is a Web-based spreadsheet created by Extentech, Inc. Features include output to PDF, compatibility with Excel, and the ability to publish spreadsheets as RSS. There are two editions, the community edition is available as a free download from http://sourceforge.net/products/sheetster/.

Statistics Tracking

Libstats is a web-based statistics tracking and knowledge base for libraries originally developed by the Engineering Library at the University of Wisconsin. It can also be used to retain reference questions and answers. There have been multiple developers since 2010. It is available for download under the GNU General Public License at http://code.google.com/p/libstats/. If the link does not work, Google Libstats project home.

Textual Citations TextCite is software for organizing and commenting textual citations from books, articles or other published works for use in producing publications. A user can organize by publication, author, category, or outline. It is available under the GNU GPL. The URL is http://textcite.sourceforge.net/.

Zotero makes is possible to collect, organize, cite, and share research sources. It has been developed more fully than TextCite because it has had funding from the Andrew W. Mellon and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations. It requires the use of the Foxfire browser. There are plug-ins for Word and Open Office. It is available for free download at www.zotero.com/.

User Authentication

See “Single Sign-on” (above).

Sources

Open source software can be found on the web by searching for specific software names or software applications, but the best sources for information about a variety of open source software packages are:

The Apache Software Foundation provides support for open-source software products by publishing open-source news, holding open sources conferences, offering training, and facilitating downloads of projects by members of the Apache Software Foundation. Most of the more than 100 software programs in the ASF’s directory are development tools. The URL is http://www.apache.org/. code4lib is a conference of open source developers and users that has gone beyond annual meetings to the maintenance of a web site for sharing information about open source products among libraries. The web site is http://code4lib.org/.

DuraCloud is a joint venture of the DSpace Foundation and Fedora Commons launched in 2009. It seeks to develop a Web service for accessing digital content in the cloud. The Library of Congress is a participant along with several other invited libraries. Current information is available at www.fedora-commons.org/.

The Free Software Foundation is the developer of the GNU open source operating system. There are many variants or distributions of the operating system, most of them using the Linux kernel. The FSF is also the creator of the GNU General Public License, the most widely used license for open source software. Finally, it is the co-sponsor of the FSF/UNESCO Free Software Directory. The URL for the FSF is www.fsf.org/ and the URL for the directory is http://directory.fsf.org/.

OCLC Research offers open source software developed by it or sponsored by it. The offerings include useful utilities for the development of library-oriented software. The software is written mostly in the Java language, although the web utilities are written in Perl. OCLC used its own public license, one similar to the GNU GPL, for several years, but now issues software under the Apache License. The URL is www.oclc.org/research/software/.

The Open Source Initiative is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community. The URL is http://www.openesource.org/. oss4lib started at the Yale Medical Library in 1999 as a listing of free software and systems designed for libraries. It also tracks news about projects and adoptions of open source by libraries. The URL is http://oss4lib.org.

SourceForge.net, which claims to be the world’s largest open source software development web site with some 90,000 open source projects, provides free hosting to open source software projects. It offers software developers tools for managing their projects; facilitates finding and downloading software by providing indexing and browsing tools, including a topical software map; and providing statistics on the number of downloads. The URL is http://sourceforge.net/.

Revised July 21, 2011

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