The Role of Vendors in an Open Software Ecosystem
Challenges and Opportunities
Marty Tarle - BiblioCommons
Typical Library Software Ecosystem
Typical Library Software Ecosystem (cont.)
Some open source software
Lots of proprietary software
All needs to work together
Open Source
Software
Proprietary Software
Perception of Proprietary Software Vendors
Perceived as closed and inflexible
Lack of APIs, difficult to integrate with
Long development cycles
Focus is Often on Wrong Things
Open sourcing
Standards support
Direct access to data
Open Sourcing
“If vendors’ products were open source, we could make any change we want”
Inefficient and costly without vendor buy-in
Standards Support
“Vendors’ products just need to support industry standards”
Standards are out of date, and limited
Direct Access to Data
“If we could just get the data out, we can do whatever we want with it”
Tremendous duplication of algorithms, infrastructure and operations
Focus Should be on Vendor Cooperation
Interoperability is a two-way street
Vendors need to
– proactively enable integrations
– proactively integrate other solutions into theirs
Vendor Development Models
Agility is critical
Scrum and lean are now the norm
Long development cycles are unacceptable
Vendor Delivery Models
SaaS rapid deployment of new functionality
Cloud rapid scaling of hardware
Industry trend is towards “continuous deployment”
Vendor Culture
Openness = part of company DNA
Integration = core organizational capability
Openness = proactive, continuous effort
What to ask your vendors
Pace of innovation
How many releases
Release notes
Development model
Delivery model
What to ask your vendors (cont.)
API?
Public
Scalable
Flexible
White label?
Cloud / SOA?
What to ask your vendors (cont.)
Philosophy
Intentions
History
Opportunities
Different strengths of proprietary and open source presents opportunities
Technology lifecycle is important!
Technology Adoption LifecycleAdoption of Open
Source Technology by Libraries Adoption of Proprietary
Technology by Libraries
Adopting OS Technology Too Soon
Impacts service delivery
Increases in-house IT costs
Increases operational costs organization-wide
Best Time to Adopt Open Source
The most successful OS projects are in mature/commodity categories
– Operating systems (Linux, Ubuntu)– Browsers (Firefox)– Databases (MySQL)– Content Management Systems (Drupal, Wordpress)
Best Time to Adopt Proprietary
Commodity/mature products still charge high technology prices
Proprietary products provide the best value earlier in the cycle
Opportunities - ROI
Proprietary Investment
Open Source Investment
Opportunities - Strategic
Open source and proprietary can be combined strategically:
– Complementary
– Additive
Complementary
Primary goal is cost savings
Example: Proprietary solution use to complement open source
Drupal + Acquia (Drupal Gardens)
Evergreen + BiblioCommons
Additive
Primary goal is innovation
Example: proprietary platform enables rapid development of extensions
BiblioCommons API
Conclusion
Vendors and open source communities can work together.
What makes a successful partnership?
– Communication
– Transparency
– Accountability
– Shared Success
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