Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:49:32 +0500 From: Upadhyay P K <pku@nic.in> 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 <vinitbhu06@gmail.com> 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