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Library of Congress Explores Ways To Release OS Software

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the all-about-transparency dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Library of Congress has established an internal process to start creating more open source software which will make it easier for software developers and sponsors within the Library to produce software that can be freely redistributed to users worldwide. The Library has released some open source software to this point, concentrating on developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification."

13 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Didn't RTFA, did you?

    BTW, They're designating the software created by staff as Public Domain in the comments, but in repositories that don't offer that category using the least restrictive category they provide, typically BSD.

    Publications of the US Government are typically in the public domain.

    I, for one, welcome our new code-sharing librarian overlords. For the most part code writ at taxpayer expence should be made available if possible so the taxpayers can use it for themselves - and other government agencies can as well without duplicating effort and expense.

  2. How many Libraries Of Congress... by Maow · · Score: 2, Funny

    How many Libraries Of Congress will the source code amount to?

    Or is it easier to measure it in VW Bugs? Football field lengths?

    I'm confused.

    1. Re:How many Libraries Of Congress... by ickleberry · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since an ordinary cheap consumer electronic storage device will now store it's entire contents it would make sense that they would turn to writing bloatware to preserve their status

    2. Re:How many Libraries Of Congress... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How many Libraries Of Congress will the source code amount to?

      One, by definition. This is going to be quite useful.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:How many Libraries Of Congress... by my+$anity++0 · · Score: 2, Informative
      "if digitized and stored as plain text, 20 terabytes of information (10 in other quotations)"

      ~Wikipedia

      I wouldn't consider at least 5 $150 hard disk drives exactly cheap...

    4. Re:How many Libraries Of Congress... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No; but it hasn't often been the case, historically speaking, that you could store a LoC(or period equivalent big serious repository of knowledge) for the price of a not-especially-thrilling week's wage...

  3. So what happens if... by starbugs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think this is great news, but what happens if inadvertently some of this software infringes on a patent or two?

    1. Re:So what happens if... by sakdoctor · · Score: 2, Informative

      You see, Oliver...

      In this life, one thing counts
      In the bank, large amounts
      I'm afraid these don't grow on trees,
      You've got to infringe a patent or two

      You've got to infringe a patent or two, boys,
      You've got to infringe a patent or two.

    2. Re:So what happens if... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think this is great news, but what happens if inadvertently some of this software infringes on a patent or two?

      The same thing that happens when any other open source infringes on a patent. Absolutely nothing unless or until the patent owner decides to sue somebody. There is no hole ripped in the space-time continuum, nobody is going to get arrested, nothing will self-destruct.

      BTW--The Library of Congress != USPTO. Copyrights are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and copies of the works are stored in the Library of Congress; Patents and Trademarks with the USPTO. There is no "office of intellectual property". Know why? Because, legally, there's no such thing.

      --
      My blog
    3. Re:So what happens if... by RoboRay · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe somebody with pull will finally realize how stupid software patents are and get them abolished?

  4. Re:Leave it to government to come up with that by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Informative

    By a few of the entries, looks like they do. Though more accurately, people are creating OS projects based on LoC standards.

    Sourceforge.net

  5. Re:Leave it to government to come up with that by starbugs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why can't they just use source forge like everybody else?

    You mean http://sourceforge.net/projects/loc-xferutils.

  6. U.S. copyright office requires IE 6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I find it ironic in a sad shoot myself in the head sort of way that the copyright.gov requires IE 6 and does not work with the firefox. I was trying to copyright some material today ( graphic art not software), and was finally forced to run windows xp using vbox with windows 6 on linux to be able to upload the images.