Re: [LIS-Forum] kindly mail 2 forum members. Open source software

I have some points to make here on FOSS>... When anyone buys a Propriety Product .... it includes the support.... Whereas in FOSS.... the Support is from outside.. Either Community (Free) or Commercial/Private (Paid)... FOSS is peoples/community developed products.... its easy if we learn about it... you would love to know what it is and how it is build.... you can empower yourself... In Propriety Software.... you are free to have cup of tea... and leave the job to the Customer Service Support Person.... And after first year... the next year comes as AMC at a percentage of the total cost of the product... in FOSS... Community is there to help you out... many spends time and energy in developing FOSS products for the community... Now you decide.... Sridhar __________________________________________________________ Sridhar Gutam PhD, ARS, Patent Laws (NALSAR), IP & Biotech. (WIPO) Senior Scientist (Plant Physiology) Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture Joint Secretary, Agricultural Research Service Scientists' Forum Convenor, Open Access India Country Representative, YPARD Rehmankhera, Kakori Post Lucknow 226101, Uttar Pradesh, India Phone: +91-522-2841022/23/24; Fax: +91-522-2841025 Mobile:+91-9005760036/8005346136 Publications: http://works.bepress.com/sridhar_gutam/ On 4 April 2013 15:36, G.K.MANJUNATH wrote:

I do not agree with Mr.Arunachalam's remarks - "Many Institutions have squandered public funds ".

Open source software, whether Operating System or Applications software, are available for many other applications too and only for libraries. I would like to highlight few of these:

According to some experts, 'R' is a good open source software available for statistical analysis. But, how many of the statisticians and social scientists from the publicly funded institutions and Government Departments are using it ? Why majority of them still demand for and use expensive commercial software such as SPSS, Matlab, SAS, Gauss, Stata, Mathematica, LIMDEP, GAMS, etc.?

Linux is an open source Operating System. How many of the publicly funded institutions have completely abandoned Windows OS and are using OSS for workstations /PCs or for server applications? How many of these institutions are using Open Office instead of MS-Office. If not, why ?

Why majority of the libraries in United States and European countries are using commercial software ? I do not have any empirical evidence to quote the numbers. However, my observations and discussion with professional friends during my visits to some of the these places revealed that majority of the big libraries in these countries prefer commercial software.

It is an understatement to say that people are now seeing the light at the end of tunnel. I would like to delineate reasons and compulsion Indian libraries had to use the commercial software and to continue with it. When no suitable open source software meeting all the local requirements was available to libraries, there was no option but to go in for commercial software.

Library automation using commercial software began some time in late 1980's and during this period no open source software was available. For that matter, no user friendly, easy to install and ready to use OSS was available till 2006 or so. Lots of experiments have been conducted on OSS, some with success and some with no or limited success.We always proudly share our success stories with others, but refrain from sharing the failures. Authorities in many institutions insist on quick implementation using a tested commercial software rather on experimenting with OSS, indefinitely. Secondly, it is slightly difficult to migrate to OSS or any other software when one is highly conversant with the existing one.

Therefore, I would like to know from those libraries, who migrated from commercial software to Open source software, the following :

1. How much money ( Direct and Indirect cost ) and time was spent on data migration and customization?

2. Whether librarians themselves did the job or took help from computer professionals ?

3. Whether they could convert all the time-series administrative data or only the bibliographic data ? How do they retrieve administrative data, if it is not transferred during migration ?

4. After migration, whether they have totally discontinued the earlier software or still using the old one for some reasons?

Going by certain observations and genuine reasons, it will take some more time for the LIS professionals to learn, test, understand, implement and successfully use open source software. "Never be the first or never be the last. Learn from others experience", said some one. Therefore, I do not think the main intention would be to squander public funds.

With great appreciation and due respect to all those who developed or contributed for further improvements of Koha, I have few observation to make. No doubt Koha is an excellent software built on sound architecture and proven technology and has great potential to become the most preferred OSS. However, from my personal experience, I hesitate to accept Koha in its present format. The flow of work in Koha's acquisition and serial control module is not suitable for Indian libraries. I feel, these modules need lots of customization. Same is the view expressed by some of my senior professional friends who have tested it.

Many libraries who have opted for Koha are directly cataloging the books and using only the circulation module and OPAC.

Following are some of the requirements to make Koha more popular and acceptable without any apprehension :

1. An institution (S) to provide support such as data conversion, migration, customization and online support, for a nominal fee.

2. A Government institution to fund periodic regional Workshops and training programmes on Koha, the way CDS/ISIS was promoted by NISSAT. Opportunity may be given to professionals to give demos of additional utilities developed by them. NISSAT did this during the CDS/ISIS workshops.

3. Ready to use SQL statements to generate certain outputs/queries which are not possible at present. Such statments can be run either from MySQL prompt or from Koha's customised menus.

4. Directory of Indian experts in Koha who can offer help voluntarily.

5. A team of librarians to suggest required customization to suit requirements of Indian libraries.

6. Directory of companies who offer Koha services on cloud or at sites.

7. Directory of institutions who are using all the modules of Koha.

8. Introducing Koha or any OSS in LIS syllabus.

thanks,

G.K.Manjunath Chief Librarian IGIDR, Mumbai

...

On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Mailing List Admin wrote:

...

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 02:10:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Subbiah Arunachalam

At last people are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! Many institutions have squandered public funds - all coming from taxpayers - on commercially marketed software when excellent software is available for free. Prof. ARD Prasad, Director of DRTC at ISI, B'lore, has been advocating the adoption of open source software for years but barring a few others have ignored his recommendation. Yes, go for KOHA. There is a worldwide community of KOHA users and you can always learn from each other.

SA

________________________________ From: ARAGONDA L MOORTHY To: Swati Bhattacharyya Cc: Dr. Rama K C Patro ; lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Sent: Thursday, 28 March 2013, 14:06 Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] kindly mail 2 forum members

Dear ALL, This is reg LibSys. We too faced problems in using the software in 2005-06 at DRDL, Hyderabad. We switched over from Libris to LibSys. For data export, they took enormous time. The Engineer who visited DRDL, Hyderabad took data on CD to facilitate export of OPAC data. But after 6 months expressed inability to export saying some lame excuse. Again they took the data and took more time. Meanwhile I joined DESIDOC in 2006, and was able to call their senior executives to solve the problem. All this took more than 1 year. Again they charge exorbitantly for maintenance. I understand it has the largest customer base in India and so they are dictating term (Monopoly). LIS professionals have to unitedly take on such issues raising in National Forums like Conferences, etc. Whenever we suggest a new facility--utility--improvement, they take and improve the software. But our intellectual capital (suggestions/improvements) do not get any rewards. The are used to bring new release with increased price tag. Why can't we use KOHa or NEWGENLI--the open source software???? AL MOORTHY

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