The good, the bad or the ugly?  Perceptions of open source

	Scott Siddall – Denison University
	John Bucher – Oberlin College
	Rob Abel – IMS Global Learning Consortium

Roadmap

	Brief introduction
	Current state of open source – Rob
	Oberlin as a case study – John
	Denison as a case study – Scott
	Point/Counterpoint – all
	Open discussion

Why open source?

	You can run it – share it – change it – improve it
	“People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.”
		The Open Source Initiative http://opensource.org

The Expectations

	Price – 54%
	Flexibility - 42%
	Functionality - 40%
	Performance – 32%
	TCO – 31%
	Data from Saugatuck Technology and BusinessWeek Research Services

Open source is a licensing model

	Open Source Initiative
	>60 licensing models
	GPL, BSD, Mozilla, MIT are all popular
	GNU Public License (GPL) applies to half of the 100,000+ projects at Sourceforge

Slide 6

Open Source is also a culture

	Complex software development
	By loosely coordinated developers and contributors
	In an informal meritocracy
		software specifications are rarely written
		continuous design instead
		virtual project management
		a gentle hierarchy

“The Cathedral and the Bazaar”

	Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.
	When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.
	Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.
	Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.
	- Eric S. Raymond, 1997

Types of open source software

	Central services and infrastructure
		Email systems, servers, network management tools
	Desktop operating systems
		Linux, Sun Java Desktop
	Web applications
		ePortfolios, portals, course management, digital asset management, collaboration and communication tools, help desk systems, financial systems, student services
	“Open source is moving up the stack”
	- Brad Wheeler, Indiana University

The Assertions

	Open source software costs less than proprietary software
		Lower licensing price? – yes
		Lower total cost?  Maybe if cost allocations are shifted

Many Contentions

	OSS licensing is easy
	OSS is more reliable, fewer bugs
	OSS can be customized
	Proprietary software has better interfaces
	OSS is more secure
	OSS is better because it uses open standards
	OSS is by and for a community
	Proprietary software has better support
	OSS is difficult to install, distribute, migrate to
	OSS avoids vendor lock-in
	OSS reuses software elements efficiently
	Proprietary software developers have better resources

Need for leadership

	“People think just because it is open-source, the result is going to be automatically better. Not true. You have to lead it in the right directions to succeed.”
	- Linus Torvalds

Community Source

	Purposeful coordination of work within a community
	Based on the principles of open source development
	A greater reliance on
		Defined roles
		Responsibilities
		Funded commitments

Projects supported by the Mellon Foundation

	Sakai and SAMigo
	Westwood/Chandler
	ePortfolio (OSP)
	Public Key Infrastructure
	Open Courseware
	uPortal
	Sophie
	Pubcookie
	OKI
	Kuali
	LionShare
	VUE
	Simile

Future of the higher ed
software market

	We share unique software requirements
	Education is a tiny piece of the global software market place
	Who will create our software, at what cost?
	Will we have to craft our own software?
	What will be the impact of software development by for-profit education?

Slide 16

Case study: Denison University

	Granville, Ohio
	Traditional liberal arts curriculum
	2,150 residential students
	Undergraduate only
	200 faculty members
	31 staff members in IT

Denison and Open Source

	Key people believed in open source
	Embrace the best solution regardless of source
	Early adoption established a pattern in 1999

Denison’s choices

	Web servers
		Apache on Linux
	Course management
		Blackboard
		CourseWork
		Sakai
	Content management
		Bricolage
	uPortal
	Email systems

Slide 20

Slide 21

Email systems

	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
	Mail transport agent is Postfix
	Cyrus IMAP is the mailstore
	PHP, Perl and PostgreSQL for scripting and database
	Horde IMP webmail
	SpamAssassin for spam identification (along with public RBLs and filter rules)
	Spamity to manage the spam quarantine function
	Sympa for listserver support
	CLAM  Anti-Virus
	AMaViSd-new to glue the services together

Email systems

	Redundant hardware
		11 commodity servers
		Content switches
		SAN
	Provisioned for 30,000 accounts
	Outstanding performance
	Staff skill sets expanded

Discussion questions

	What do we do with the money we save on licensing fees?
	What’s the difference between commercial and OS software in terms of integration into campus systems?
	Is it important that software support come from the software developer?
	What criteria are important in assessing your campus readiness to adopt OS?

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