Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
hi Darrell, thanks for your intriguing post. a few of observations; 1) this is one instance of the use of a GNU/Linux system which may seem to be at odds with the very premise of free (in the GNU sense) software, and that is, to NOT limit the ability of users to do things. so your use cases may seem odd at first, but you have a valid and important case. 2) many open source programmers may not be familiar with commercial software products (and may not want to be), so you might have a better chance of getting an answer if you do the groundwork of listing the features you are in search of yourself, rather than asking the list to go learn them. 3) it seems that a good desktop linux distro would allow an administrator or programmer to create a system (based on the existing pieces you mention) that might consist of a some shell scripts, perhaps a lite database, a web server, and client- and server-side scripts to accomplish the features that you list, and then provide hooks for that system to be made into a distributable package (e.g. Ubuntu). i wouldn't be surprised if your listing the desired features explicitly might seed some capable programmers mind to suggest (or even spend some time coding something up) which may help you right away. or, it may just prompt someone to remember that something _does_ already exist that answers your needs. (i think Francis' LibPrint suggestion seems very helpful) just keep in mind that the very nature of the linux system is organic, and the workforce is distributed and lasseiz-faire. it doesn't seem to be very agile in responding to monolithic deficiencies (just look at how we ended up with the linux kernel vs. hurd :). /st...@archive.org On 12/30/08 12:37 PM, Darrell Eifert wrote: Hi Folks -- Nicolaie Constantinescu recommended that I contact this list with my questions after posting a query to the Linux in Libraries group. I will be presenting an introduction to Desktop Linux at the New Hampshire Library Association next year, and would like some help on answering a question that is sure to arise from my prospective audience. Many librarians are intrigued by the possibility of lowering IT costs and maintenance time, especially for their public-use computers. Right now however, there doesn't seem to be any open source versions of a reservation / ticket system (such as the excellent WinXP Time Limit Manager from Fortres) and a desktop security application such as Deep Freeze. There are commercial options from Groovix or Userful, but that pretty much defeats the practical goal of lowering IT costs, or the ideological goal of moving to free and open-source applications. All the 'bits and pieces' for a good reservation and security system seem to be out there. Edubuntu gives us a LTSP solution with a central server and the ability to see 'screenshots' of individual PCs if necessary. CUPS gives a very fine-grained control over printing, and perhaps can be modified to function as a print-upon-payment release station. A MySQL / PhP module could handle generating and storing random passwords / logins, while a small program to set folder permissions may be able to lock down a Gnome or KDE desktop to prevent users from changing icons, menus, or wallpaper. Web content filtering is available from several sources if necessary. A browser-based central server module might help to make the project distro agnostic. I think many small and medium-sized libraries would be much more likely to consider the advantages of choosing Linux for their public-use computers if a polished open-source reservation and printing control system was available. In the world of commercial software, an entrepreneur or company sees an opportunity, programs a solution, and sells the product. On that model we have the afore mentioned Time Limit Manager for XP (which we use here at the Lane Library and highly recommend) at a one-time cost of only $20 per PC. In the world of Linux and open-source software, how does one go about getting a programmer or group of programmers to provide a free solution (with regular maintenance and updates) to a pressing need? Would Canonical (for example) be interested in creating the program as a way to popularize Ubuntu with the thousands who use library computers every day? Would anyone on this list be interested in spearheading such a project? Is there a place to float such a project before a group of up-and-coming programmers (Google Summer of Code??) that would give them bragging rights on a resume? Any ideas (including ideas on a basic programming framework or project how to) would be more than welcome ... Cheers,
[CODE4LIB] T-Shirt Design Contest
Hi Folks - It's time to submit your designs for the 2009 code4lib conference t-shirt! As in years past, the design should be for the front of the t-shirt, and should work with a one-color printing. A template is available from cafepress.com: http://www.cafepress.com/content/si/temp_10x10_apparel.zip. Please send a high-quality image of your design to me at jean.rainwa...@gmail.com. I'll post the candidates at http://code4lib.org/node/273. (Previous years' entries are linked on this page.) Please send in your submissions by Monday, January 19. A vote will be held sometime after the deadline has passed. Thanks! Jean
Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
Actually, I meant 'free' in both senses, but mostly in the sense of 'free of charge'. I hate to be blunt, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Ubuntu, Koha, GIMP, OpenOffice, Joomla and even the option of Linux itself would never exist or have gained traction and a developer base if these products were not freely available. Groovix and Userful are selling proprietary public-use computer management packages at a higher cost than their XP equivalents. If an open source LTSP solution were available under Linux (as in the Edubuntu package for schools) I would be much happier about recommending Linux as a solution for public-use computers in small to medium-sized independent public libraries. Again, I would invite those interested in providing help on this project to look at the feature list of 'Time Limit Manager' from Fortres -- that's what I want in an LTSP package. (As an analogy, remember that Koha was once just an idea floating around in some idealistic New Zealander's head.) http://www.fortresgrand.com/products/tlm/tlm.htm Cheers, -- Darrell Erik Hetzner wrote: At Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:28:44 -0800, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: Darrell Eifert wrote: There are commercial options from Groovix or Userful, but that pretty much defeats the practical goal of lowering IT costs, or the ideological goal of moving to free and open-source applications. I have a hard time considering free (as in not paying for) as ideological. If linux is a good desktop, the freeness is icing on the cake. (And it's only free as in the purchase price; you still pay in some way to maintain it.) If you need to purchase apps to make your library work as it should, then you should budget for that. I think we need to see free and open source as two different properties that MAY intersect but do not necessarily intersect. kc (who prefers linux to windows, and is looking forward to being able to purchase my favorite apps for linux as they become available) I think that Darrell probably meant ‘free’ in the GNU sense: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html best, Erik ;; Erik Hetzner, California Digital Library ;; gnupg key id: 1024D/01DB07E3 -- - Darrell Eifert Head of Adult Services Lane Memorial Library, Hampton NH Beware the man of only one book Old Latin proverb
Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
At Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:02:31 -0500, Darrell Eifert deif...@hampton.lib.nh.us wrote: Actually, I meant 'free' in both senses, but mostly in the sense of 'free of charge'. Thanks for the clarification. In that case I have to agree with Karen. Free (as in beer) software tends to be a property that results from the principles of free (as in speech) software, but it is not an goal in itself of most free/open source software developers. I hate to be blunt, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Ubuntu, Koha, GIMP, OpenOffice, Joomla and even the option of Linux itself would never exist or have gained traction and a developer base if these products were not freely available. Probably - but they certainly never would have gained a developer base if they were not free in the sense of having the source code available, and allowing modifications. Freedom is more important to community building than giving the software away without cost. Groovix and Userful are selling proprietary public-use computer management packages at a higher cost than their XP equivalents. If an open source LTSP solution were available under Linux (as in the Edubuntu package for schools) I would be much happier about recommending Linux as a solution for public-use computers in small to medium-sized independent public libraries. Again, I would invite those interested in providing help on this project to look at the feature list of 'Time Limit Manager' from Fortres -- that's what I want in an LTSP package. (As an analogy, remember that Koha was once just an idea floating around in some idealistic New Zealander's head.) http://www.fortresgrand.com/products/tlm/tlm.htm Groovix claims to be GPLed, though they do not make it easy to get the software. Here is some info: http://wiki.groovix.org/index.php?title=GroovixSoftwareInstaller best, Erik pgpzjohkt6SmU.pgp Description: PGP signature
[CODE4LIB] FW: Ruby client library for Solr
Sorry for posting again, but we changed the name of this project slightly to avoid confusion. It is now known as RSolr. The url is: http://github.com/mwmitchell/rsolr/tree/master Thanks! Matt Mitchell Research Development Alderman Library University of Virginia From: Mitchell, Matthew (mwm4n) Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 4:43 PM To: Code for Libraries Subject: Ruby client library for Solr I've been working on a new Solr client library over the past few months and I feel it's finally getting to a good usable/stable spot. Some of it's capabilities: ability to send arbitrary params to solr transparent jruby, direct connection support document set pagination http client adapters for Net::HTTP and Curb (ruby bindings for curl) simplified filter and facet querying using ruby constructs We'll be integrating this into Blacklight soon. But I'm hoping to get as much feedback as possible before doing so. Here's the project page: http://github.com/mwmitchell/solr/tree/master And if you'd like to jump in and try it NOW: # install gem sources -a http://gems.github.com sudo gem install mwmitchell-solr # try it out solr = Solr.connect(:http, solr_server_url) response = solr.query(:q='*:*', :page=1, :per_page=10) response.docs.each do |doc| end Any thoughts or ideas? Features you'd like to see implemented or possible gotchas that I'm not seeing? Any Ruby developers out there that might want to chip in? Thanks for your time, Matt Mitchell Research Development Alderman Library University of Virginia
Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
hi Darrell, thanks for your intriguing post. a few observations; 1) this is one instance of the use of a GNU/Linux system which may seem to be at odds with the very premise of free (in the GNU sense) software, and that is; to NOT limit the ability of users to do things. so your use cases may seem odd at first, but you have a valid and important case. 2) many open source programmers may not be familiar with commercial software products (and may not want to be), so you might have a better chance of getting an answer if you do the groundwork of listing the features you are in search of yourself, rather than asking the list to go learn them. 3) it seems that a good desktop linux distro would allow an administrator or programmer to create a system (based on the existing pieces you mention) that might consist of a some shell scripts, perhaps a lite database, a web server, and client- and server-side scripts to accomplish the features that you list, and then provide hooks for that system to be made into a distributable package (e.g. Ubuntu). i wouldn't be surprised if your listing the desired features explicitly might seed some capable programmer's mind to suggest (or even spend some time coding something up) which may help you right away. or, it may just prompt someone to remember that something _does_ already exist that answers your needs. (i think Francis' LibPrint suggestion seems very helpful) just keep in mind that the very nature of the linux system is organic, and the workforce is distributed and lasseiz-faire. it doesn't seem to be very agile in responding to monolithic deficiencies (just look at how we ended up with the linux kernel vs. hurd :). /st...@archive.org
Re: [CODE4LIB] Linux Public Computers - time and ticket reservation system
On Tue, 30 Dec 2008, Darrell Eifert wrote: Hi Folks -- Nicolaie Constantinescu recommended that I contact this list with my questions after posting a query to the Linux in Libraries group. [trimmed] In the world of Linux and open-source software, how does one go about getting a programmer or group of programmers to provide a free solution (with regular maintenance and updates) to a pressing need? Would Canonical (for example) be interested in creating the program as a way to popularize Ubuntu with the thousands who use library computers every day? Would anyone on this list be interested in spearheading such a project? Is there a place to float such a project before a group of up-and-coming programmers (Google Summer of Code??) that would give them bragging rights on a resume? Usually, it comes to down to a 'build it and they will come' type situation -- you see what you want, so you start it (either on your own, or with a team), and put it out there for people to use / comment on / add to / etc. So, as you have the vision, I'd suggest you spearhead it yourself -- even if that doesn't mean programming, but trying to get some programmers interested in the project while you deal more with requirements analysis. As for where to find programmers, I'd suggest you try selling the project on the oss4lib list: http://www.oss4lib.org/mailing-list (there's a fair bit of cross-over of membership between oss4lib and code4lib, but that's probably a closer fit to what you're trying to do) - Joe Hourcle
[CODE4LIB] Call for volunteers
Stephanie Brinley has provided some draft logo design concepts to the logo design working group and we would now like to invite other code4lib members who have had previous experience with a logo design and selection process to join us in reviewing them. Our goal is to provide rapid, specific, and unified input back to Stephanie so she can continue work. Our hope is to have the logo finalized well in time for the conference perhaps in time to make it onto the t-shirt. So if you qualify and have time this week to participate, please contact me directly. Thanks, Roy Tennant Emily Molanphy Ranti Junus
