Zzzoot

Yalta and Yalta 2010 ( " Should Economists Use Open Source Software for Doing Research? ") examine the reliability, accuracy and bug fixing time for an Open Source econometric software package and five commercial econometric software packages. They find that after 5 years many of the bugs in the commercial software have not been fixed, whereas similar bugs in the Open Source software are fixed and released within a week of the discovery of the bugs. Building on the work done by McCullough in 2004 applying a set of tests called Wilkinson's tests to the five commercial software packages, they re-apply these tests to the new versions of the commercial software, and apply the tests to the Open Source econometrics software Gretl . The idea behind the Yalta and Yalta paper is to evaluate the bug fix time of the Open Source software, and compare this to the fixes -- if any -- and their times, that have been applied to the commercial software, since the 2004 McCullough paper...

"*pybctc* is a python package that makes access to British Columbia Transmission Corporation (BCTC) electric data easier. The British Columbia Transmission Corporation is a crown corporation with a mandate to plan, build, and operate the province of British Columbia's electricity transmission system. It publishes valuable information on electicity generation, transmission, and consumption to its website. This information is useful for many purposes including economic analysis, power trading, electric system study, and forecasting. The first step in using such information is to download it an parse it into useful data structures - a task performed by this library. The processed data normally will feed statistical methods, heuristics, and system models to provide a useful analysis of the British Columbia electric system. The *pybctc* project is hosted at http://bitbucket.org/kc/pybctc The data this library accesses can be found here: B.C. Transmission Corp historical trans...

A colleague of mine is having some difficulties getting an Open Source solution to be made available within his government organization. In providing support to him, I've collected the below resources. Of particular interest is the 2007 Government Open Source Policies from the Center for Strategic and International Studies , listing the Open Source policies of hundreds of national, state/province/territory and local governments (including Canada's). 2009 The DoD and Open Source Software. Oracle White Paper 2009 Open source software could save millions (Scotland) 2009 Open Source Vendors welcome new UK Government policy, but want more action 2009 Liam Maxwell The High Cost of government IT 2009 Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies 2009 D.Gatto & J.Herzfeld. Department of Defense Debunks Myths and Endorses Use of Open Source Software 2008. The acquisition of (open-source) software A guide for ICT buyers in the public and semi-public sectors (Dut...

It was very interesting to recently discover this Hansard exchange from the UK parliament dated Nov 12 2009 involving Open Source and sharing data: House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 12 Nov 2009 Public Bodies: Databases Mr. Maude : To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what steps her Department is taking to facilitate data sharing among public sector bodies. [299480] Angela E. Smith : The Ministry of Justice is the lead Department on data sharing. The Cabinet Office supports technical elements of secure data handling and ensures that considerations of Data Sharing informs our work to promote more joined up public services. Sharing data securely is a requirement of the Data Handling Review, which all public bodies must adhere to. Public Sector: ICT Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what assessment has been made of the levels of compliance with her Department's guidance on public sector open source software procurement; and what steps are being tak...

IBM developerWorks has an article ( Linux: Lean, clean, and green: How GNU/Linux is becoming more eco-friendly - 26 May 2009) which examines some of the Green benefits of the Linux operating system. It focuses primarily on the low resource demands Linux has on systems (as well as its support for older systems), thus extending the life of machines that would otherwise be junked. Also discussed is virtualization and aspects of the Linux OS that reduce power consumption in servers. Additional Green Linux and Open Source resource: LessWatts.org - Saving Power on Intel systems with Linux Ten ways Linux can turn you green . 2009 Green Computing With Open Source Software . 2009 Open Source is Already Naturally Green: Fewer Lawyers, Fewer Showers, More Real People Add Up to Big Green Wins . 2009 Is Linux the Greenest Operating System . 2009 Go Green, Save Green with Linux . 2008 Linux captures the 'green' flag, beats Windows 2008 power-saving measures 2008 Canadian Green Party...

Lecture: " Open Source Licences and the Boundaries of Knowledge Production " Michael Madison , Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Place: Fauteux Hall , room 351 Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa Description: What is the future of open source licensing? The presentation will use Jacbosen v. Katzer, a recent opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that analyzes an open source software license, to frame a discussion of open source issues that are conceptual, historical, and practical. For more information . RSVP needed to techlaw@uottawa.ca or on Facebook group . Dr. Madison appears to be a fairly enlightened lawyer who has studied and published on IP, copyright and (software) licensing issues: Intellectual Property and Americana, or Why IP Gets the Blues . 18 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 677 (2008). The Idea of the Law Rev...

Day 1 LibX2. LibX Edition builder . Build custom version of LibX Xtensible Catalog. Drupal, LMS, NCIP, LMS integration: Blackboard. webcast . scriblio: Social Library System Wordpress based plugin enjoysthin.gs . Mark Matienzo. anarchivist.Rich contextual book marklet. Emily Lynema. NCSU Libraries. E-Matrix : Open Source ERM Eric Lease Morgan. Alex4 . Erik Hatcher. Lucid Imagination. Lucene/SOLR. Index of Lucene apache site. Mike Taylor and Mike. Index Data. Translucent record store=="Torus" pazpar2 . Registry of searchable targets? Hard to do. IRSpy :Z39.50 Mike Beccaria from Paul Smith College. Microsoft DeepZoom . "Like microfiche" - audience. Photosynth of library stacks?? Dan Chudnov, LOC. BagIt File Package Format Random things heard and seen: citation style language , Open Vocab , UCSD Libraries Digital Assest Management System , SWORDS . Distributed version control: monotone , mercurial , bzr . Day 2: A new frontier - the Open Library Environment (OLE) -- T...

This workshop - to be held at Indiana University March 26,27 2009 - examines the question: " given millions of dollars invested in initiating software development, how is software that will be important to the US research and engineering communities identified, maintained, and supported over years to decades? " Of course a question of interest for other countries and their cyberinfrastructure initiatives. Workshop Goals: The goals of the Cyberinfrastructure Software Sustainability and Reusability workshop are as follows: Examine software evaluation and adoption models by individual research labs and virtual organizations Examine models for long-term software sustainability – the ability to obtain the software one wants with assurance, obtain the information required to use the software, obtain the software and hardware environments required to run the software, and use the software. Discuss mechanisms for supporting sustainability, including direct government support, unive...

The Canadian government has an RFI concerning Free and Open Source Software (" No Charge Licensed Software "): This is not a bid solicitation. Canada is seeking feedback from the Industry with respect to No Charge Licensed Software.... Canada has a Request for Information (RFI) related to No-Charge Licensed Software (typically referred to as Free and Open Source Software or FOSS and also applicable to freeware).... The purpose of the RFI is to help the Government of Canada (GC) put together guidelines related to the planning, acquisition, use and disposal of No Charge Licensed Software (NCLS). While there is already significant interest for No Charge Licensed Software within the Government of Canada there are many questions being asked, see below. There exists operationally a requirement to produce common guidelines that are fair, open and transparent and can be applied consistently across departments.... In the Overview, the Crown provided a definition for No Charge Licensed...

The March 2008 issue of Computers in Libraries is titled " The Open Source Software Craze" and has a series of articles on Open Source in Libraries: Using Open Source to Give Patrons What They Want . Amy Begg De Groff. The Community Behind the Code . Terence K. Huwe. Making a Business Case for Open Source ILS . Marshall Breeding. What Librarians Still Don’t Know About Open Source . Daniel Chudnov. Open Source Becomes More Accessible . Janet L. Balas. What Can Open Source Do for You? Rachel Singer Gordon and Jessamyn West. Unfortunately most of the articles do not seem to be web accessible until later this month.

Inside Higher Ed (Feb 19) has an article on some of the changes afoot in library technology: Open Minds, Open Books, Open Source . "Last month, a survey by Marshall Breeding, director for innovative technologies and research at Vanderbilt University’s library, revealed a measure of discord over the options available to librarians for automating their electronic catalogs and databases, software called integrated library systems.....So librarians aren’t exactly reaching for their torches and pitchforks. Still, some libraries, fed up with software that doesn’t fully meet their needs, have decided to take matters, figuratively, into their own hands. With a bit of grant money and some eager developers, institutions have begun creating their own open-source solutions that are fully customizable, free for others to use and compatible with existing systems. The result has been a whole crop of projects that, when combined, could serve as a fully integrated, end-to-end open-source solutio...

Both as a Canadian who has enjoyed the rants of Rick Mercer and as someone who spent a lot of time working with geographers at the Atlas of Canada (and even enjoying some of it!), I am appreciating the convergence of these two things as embodied in the self-described rant by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins ( Reclaiming the map: British Geography and ambivalent cartographic practice ) In their rant, the Royal Geographical Society (" the heart of geography ") is roasted for using a (" Mc-Map ") Google Maps location map on the back of the RGS-IBG 2007 Annual International Conference programme. While concerned with this and the apparent decline of mapping in geography ( Geographers Don’t Map Anymore Do They? ) and the sub-discipline of cartography ( Cartographers: Who Needs Them Anymore? ) I think their conclusion that mapping is actually easier and possibly better and making a popular and significant resurgence ( Mapping Reinvigorated? ) through mashups (including ...

The article When Is Open Access Not Open Access? (CJ MacCallum) PLoS Biology examines the slippery activities of publishers that try and fly the flag of Open Access (with varying degrees of capitalization) but who only offer the free-as-in-beer definition of freedom, as opposed to the Open Access definition, which includes --- as well as free- gratis freedom -- extensive intellectual property rights permitting unrestricted derivative use. This issue and these distinctions were discussed earlier this year in " Free but not open? " at the PLoS blog. I have noticed that many journals use the weasel words like " We conform to open access as defined by SHERPA ". The SHERPA definition does not include the extensive IP rights described by Open Access: By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of...

University Affairs has an interesting article on Open Science that examines the patents and licensing regime and its impacts on science and the ability to do science. While at times advocating an Open Source-like model of Open Science, the author is a little to wishy-washy and supports hybrid models which are too much of a slippery slope for me. I also don't agree with a number of statements including: But now an international scientific counterculture is emerging. Often referred to as "open science" this growing movement proposes that we err on the side of collaboration and sharing. Counter-culture ? I think that he has it backwards: despite the many biotechnologists and biotech companies and other science-based industries that use the patent system to support their business interests - usually encumbering further scientific discovery - the vast majority of scientists - at least working in academia, and of course with exceptions - have long been and will continue, wo...

I have been closely following the incandescent light vs. compact fluorescent light (CFL) debate ( BBC , /. , ABC , The Hindu ) which has moved into the legislatures of many provinces (here in Canada: Ontario , New Brunswick ), states (in the U.S.: California , ), countries ( Australia ) and regions ( EU ). I find this debate has interesting parallels to the software world, in particular the Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) world. The light bulb debate has been focused on (banning) a particular implementation technology (incandescent) when it should be focused on metrics (i.e. the proposed "standards" say something like " any light bulbs except incandescents "). Instead of banning a particular technology you instead want to put in place sensible, reasonable metrics and apply these as your standard. In this case, the standard should be some combination of energy/light output efficiency (light output per energy input, perhaps in lumens / watt) and lumino...

Extensible Text Framework (XTF) : FLOSS platform for access to digital content XTF is the California Digital Library 's amazing access platform for digital content. It is based on Lucene , a tool that is well known as a scalable and stable full-text engine. But XTF is more than Lucene, and is a full end-to-end system, offering ü ber configurable indexing, quering and display. Java-based, completely XSLT-driven presentation-layer, extensible to things like Shibboleth , and has some very nice additioanl features like OAI-PMH provider and SRU . From what I can tell it does not have an SOA architecture, but offers a high degree of modularity which could easily be wrapped in Web services, etc

Proprietary vs. Open Source development analogy: like training-for-a-race vs. running-a-race In reading about the new (to me, at least) transactional database engine for MySQL (v >= 5.1 ) called the PrimeBase XT storage engine ( PBXT ) I ran across an interview with its creator, Paul McCullagh . It seems that Paul was from the proprietary software development world, and was surprised by the response to the Open Source community around this project, and the new friends he has found. He felt it was a very different environment from what he was used to. In his words, from the article: I like to take marathon running as an example. Think of the difference between training for a marathon and running a race. The closed source industry is like training for a marathon. You are basically on your own. The open source community is like running a race. Not because you want to win. Most people don't run a marathon to win, they run to complete. But during the race you experience a c...