It seems like a lot of people are confused by the term "library management system". There are really two categories here, depending on what kind of stuff you're organizing:
If you're talking about books, slides, and other physical items, then you need an OPAC or something like it. Delicious Library was suggested, but I'd guess that it wouldn't scale to meet your needs. Koha looks like a better bet. I haven't tried it out yet, but it definitely looks promising. I've been surprised that there isn't a major open source OPAC/ILS, since there are a lot of libraries doing a lot of software development, while at the same time paying ridiculous yearly licensing fees to the commercial ILS vendors.
If you're talking about managing digital images, movies, ebooks, websites, and other digital resources, then DSpace and Fedora are the two major players -- both are open source, and both seem to have a good number of users (though DSpace has the edge on that point). There's also NCState's MyLibrary, which is more of a portal system, for cataloging websites in addition to other types of resources. That could be useful for having a decent library website without having to do a lot of custom coding and database setup.
The issues of audit trail tampering really brings home the point that they should really be using military-grade systems to do this kind of stuff. We already have commercially-available systems that provide a high level of auditing and capability-separation. I worked with B2 DG/UX in the past (for medical records), though I guess that since DG was purchased for their storage products, that's probalby not an option these days. Sun Trusted Solaris, a version of Solaris that is B1 equivalent, and includes x86 support. I'm sure there are a few other products out there that could be used.
Designing an audit system that isn't modifiable, even by someone who has superuser-level privelieges, isn't rocket science. Even if you don't have robust security features in your OS, you could do remote logging to a separate machine. It seems like a decent audit trail is the least we should ask for.
You know, there really isn't a "they". UCSD is a big university (tens of thousands of students, thousands of faculty, thousands of staff). I seriously doubt there was any concerted or organized effort to misappropriate your software.
Looking at the link, it looks like they did violate a somewhat involved part of the GPL. They should have been faster to fix their error, but large bureacracies often have a hard time doing anything quickly. Most likely, the people who you had problems with were probably among the most sympathetic to your cause -- the people who don't like free software tend to not use it as much as those who are trying to advocate it.
Not that you should let them get away with adding restrictions to your software and their derived software that the GPL doesn't allow. But give them a break.
is a subscription to this service (with a reasonable number of messages per month free) being a standard part of the ISP package. that solve the main problem is see with this approach -- home users wouldn't have to go through the hassle of setting up a separate account.
of course, i would bet that any large organization could negotiate a better deal than 1c per message -- as long as they kept their spam rate down.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're talking about books, slides, and other physical items, then you need an OPAC or something like it. Delicious Library was suggested, but I'd guess that it wouldn't scale to meet your needs. Koha looks like a better bet. I haven't tried it out yet, but it definitely looks promising. I've been surprised that there isn't a major open source OPAC/ILS, since there are a lot of libraries doing a lot of software development, while at the same time paying ridiculous yearly licensing fees to the commercial ILS vendors.
If you're talking about managing digital images, movies, ebooks, websites, and other digital resources, then DSpace and Fedora are the two major players -- both are open source, and both seem to have a good number of users (though DSpace has the edge on that point). There's also NCState's MyLibrary, which is more of a portal system, for cataloging websites in addition to other types of resources. That could be useful for having a decent library website without having to do a lot of custom coding and database setup.
-e
did the election of 2000 teach you nothing?
vote for a democrat, unless four more years of john ashcroft is your plan for keeping your freedoms intact.
-esme
Sorry, Capek's RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) is the play that introduced the word robot, in 1920 -- seven years before Metropolis was produced.
-esme
The issues of audit trail tampering really brings home the point that they should really be using military-grade systems to do this kind of stuff. We already have commercially-available systems that provide a high level of auditing and capability-separation. I worked with B2 DG/UX in the past (for medical records), though I guess that since DG was purchased for their storage products, that's probalby not an option these days. Sun Trusted Solaris, a version of Solaris that is B1 equivalent, and includes x86 support. I'm sure there are a few other products out there that could be used.
Designing an audit system that isn't modifiable, even by someone who has superuser-level privelieges, isn't rocket science. Even if you don't have robust security features in your OS, you could do remote logging to a separate machine. It seems like a decent audit trail is the least we should ask for.
-Esme
You know, there really isn't a "they". UCSD is a big university (tens of thousands of students, thousands of faculty, thousands of staff). I seriously doubt there was any concerted or organized effort to misappropriate your software.
Looking at the link, it looks like they did violate a somewhat involved part of the GPL. They should have been faster to fix their error, but large bureacracies often have a hard time doing anything quickly. Most likely, the people who you had problems with were probably among the most sympathetic to your cause -- the people who don't like free software tend to not use it as much as those who are trying to advocate it.
Not that you should let them get away with adding restrictions to your software and their derived software that the GPL doesn't allow. But give them a break.
-Esme
is a subscription to this service (with a reasonable number of messages per month free) being a standard part of the ISP package. that solve the main problem is see with this approach -- home users wouldn't have to go through the hassle of setting up a separate account.
of course, i would bet that any large organization could negotiate a better deal than 1c per message -- as long as they kept their spam rate down.
-esme