Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:49:32 +0500
From: Upadhyay P K
Dear freinds,
Since last few years, Open-source software is catching up IT markets
and will enter new markets in coming years. But organizations must
understand how open source is useful for them with maximum values
and minimum risks. OSS is not always cost benefinificial and
convenient. There are diffrent parameters to evaluate a software. It
may be that properietary software may increase productivity and
provide overall benifits to the organization. Even Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO) is more in case of mission critical applications
using OSS. Of course, commecial establishments are facing challenges
with Open Acess and Open Source softwares. But according to a survey
by a renowned research company Gartner, they are not still lagging
behind. Future is not clear.
There are thosands of commercial and open source softwares. Unless
somebody stamps the product, it may not be safe to use the software.
I see it as dangerous situation and quetsion mark on the open source
softwares with a case like Dspace and DOAJ charging. It is fact that
nothing is free in this world. Somebody has to invest for
sustainability and support.
It is diffrent thing that for niche applications or case study or
learning purposes, we may use OSS and cost will be negligible.
Although throughout world many mission critical applications are also
using using open-source softwares.
Even Linux has diffrent flavours. Initially everything was free. But
now RH Linux is being mainained and supported by Red Hat on
commercial basis. PostgreSQL is being supported by commercial
companies on heavy charges. Similar is also the case of MySQL.
with regards
P K Upadhyay
OIC Library
National Informatics Centre
New Delhi
http://mcitconsortium.nic.in
----- Original Message -----
From: Vinit
Date: Friday, October 3, 2008 6:09 pm
Subject: Re: [LIS-Forum] DSpace and DOAJ charging membership fees -
Whither Open Access and Open Source - makes you wonder and ponder
To: lis-forum@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in
Dear Prof. Shalini,
As we know very well that every software development needs
monitory support and from the provided link it seems that no where
they are asking for paid membership they are just asking for
sponsors(optional for users) so that they can keep on the services to
the community and it is normal in every open source project one can
see the examples from Mozilla or Apache foundations . So their is
nothing too much to ponder and wonder about the future of Open
source. :-)
Sunny Regards
Vinit Kumar
Junior Research Fellow
Documentation Research and Training Centre
Bangalore
MLISc (BHU)
Varanasi, India vinit@drtc.isibang.ac.in
