Writing Open Source Software

David KaneWIT Libraries

What is ‘Open Source’?

• Universal and free access to the design or blueprint of a product, including all subsequent improvements.

• A form of ‘Open Collaboration’ where a group of loosely affiliated individuals work towards a common goal.

What is ‘Open Source Software’?

• Universal and free access to the Source Code of a program, including all subsequent improvements.

• A form of ‘Open Collaboration’ where a group of loosely affiliated individuals work towards a common goal.

My Story

• Open Source Projects can be big and they can be small. They all solve a problem though.

• I had a problem that needed to be solved.

The Problem

The Problem

Deposit

Add Subjects

Add Metadata

Upload file(s)

Choose Type

Log In

What I Wanted

Deposit

Do it all on a single page

Reaching Out

– SWORD• Simple Web Service Offering Repository Deposit

– EasyDeposit (Last Release June ‘11)• An implementation of SWORD• Did not work in my case• Many files and folders• Not as simple as I wanted

Reaching Out

– Eprints Tech Mailing List (Feb 2013).• Discussions on SWORD relating to ingest of various data

and file formats.• Suggestions made by some to re-write some of the

code in EPrints itself.– Got speaking to Tommy Ingulfsen of Caltech• Similar Problem to our own.• After a campus-wide upgrade and migration process,

their old SWORD interface no longer worked.

Sherman M. Fairchild Library

4,986 miles

Tommy Ingulfsen

• Applications Developer in Caltech Library• From Tromsø in the Far North of Norway 69° North.• Via University in England• To California

Sierra Madre Mountain Rescue:Volunteer of the year 2012: Tommy Ingulfsen

Our Solution

HTML Form

• Fill in text fields• User/Pass• Title, Author,

Abstract, etc.• Upload File(s)

Eprints Helper

• Takes the data and files, and builds into a single XML package.

EPrints

• Authentication of User

• Ingest XML• Converts XML

to brand new EPrint

https://github.com/davidfkane/eprintsDepositHelper/

Writing Open Source Software

David KaneWIT Librariesdkane@wit.ie