Open source software is software whose source code is published and made available to the public allowing anyone to copy, modify and resistribute without paying anything - yes it is free!!
This software evolves through the community cooperation of individuals and large companies.
We aleady have OpenOffice available for use by patrons in our library and this is probably just the beginning.
Mozilla Firefox ( web browser) and Blender (3D graphics editor) are examples of Open source application software.
Moodle , the course management system we use, and MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia are examples of Open source server software.
There are of course advantages and disadvantages of Open source software. Businesses do achieve greater penetration of the market with a very much reduced cost of marketing, however it is very difficult to design a commercially sound business model around the idea of Open source software. The technical requirements may be satisfied but not the requirements of the market!
The cooperation of individuals and large companies does produce reliable, high quality software quickly and inexpensively.
Open source software is being taken up by libraries as a way of reducing costs and being able to have input into the design of the application. Evergreen is used by nearly 1000 libraries (mainly US and Canada, but also Tasmania) to provide their public catalogue, circulation and acquisition software.
I wonder how much the Corangamite Regional Library Corporation spends on software applications?
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