Comments on: SirsiDynix Corp lobby paper against Open Source technologies

By: US Defense or Sirsi-Dynix – which is more credible? | Software Cooperative News

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:25:03 +0000

[...] A SirsiDynix Corp lobby paper against Open Source technologies escaped onto the internet. SirsiDynix is a competitor of our co-op with products that compete with Koha. They’re also interesting because Sirsi bought another competitor (Dynix), essentially stopped its product line (something near impossible with Free and Open Source Software like Koha) to replace it with its own and has ended up a messy lawsuit with Queens Borough Public Library as a consequence of that – all as I understand it. [...]

By: Smiling

Smiling — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:27:43 +0000

I work for a DoD contractor. For a majority of the applications we write, most of it is based off of open source. I imagine this is yet another topic Abram speaks of that he knows nothing about.

By: John Gehner

John Gehner — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:58:26 +0000

On his blog today, Stephen Abram links to an article from Business Week called “The Seven Deadly Sins of the Innovator.” Example: Lust: Innovating in a space you have no business being in. Is he thinking of open-source advocates? When did Abram suddenly go Dick Cheney on us? Stay classy, SA!

By: Tom Blake

Tom Blake — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:56:38 +0000

“These charts illustrate concepts, not actual numbers”

HA! This says it all.

By: HotStuff 2.0 » Blog Archive » Word of the Day: “wikileaks”

HotStuff 2.0 » Blog Archive » Word of the Day: “wikileaks” — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:05:39 +0000

[...] Corp lobby paper against Open Source technologies [web link]librarian.net (30/Oct/2009)“…my inbox today from wikileaks read it and [...]

By: rick

rick — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:11:49 +0000

Abram manages to slam a system that serves a heck of a lot of citizens in Georgia as being a stupid development after failing them for years with his own company’s offering, makes numerous hints about unsavoury aspects of OSS, even a terrorist connection no less, purposely mixes up library decisions to join PINES the consortium with Evergreen the system, and then calls for a “respectful” discussion when the cat is let out of the bag. I guess he didn’t link open source to drowning kittens but this seems unworthy of a pundit of such stature. If anything, Lynch comes across even worse than Abram. I can sort of understand flailing around on a sinking ship as is the case for Abram, but someone should tell Lynch that Koha is more than a decade old now and Evergreen has been live for years. Indiana, Michigan and further up north, I think there are a bunch of big Canadian sites, once a sirsidynix stronghold. This firestorm might have made some sense in 1999, it should be embarrassing to everyone in 2009.

By: Mary H. White

Mary H. White — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:57:51 +0000

Stephen Abram has joined the dark side. What a pity. We currently use Innovative and are exploring open source options. Just to make certain we did a thorough job on our homework, we also obtained a quote from SirsiDynix. Their quote for annual maintenance was even higher than our Innovative annual maintenance fees. Needless to say, I was surprised.

By: Informed Decisions and Who You Get That Information From - LibNiblets

Informed Decisions and Who You Get That Information From - LibNiblets — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:29:53 +0000

[...] has prevented me from actually, you know, posting anything. Yesterday, however, I stumbled upon a post by the awesome Jessamyn West about a document that Stephen Abram, Vice President of Innovation for [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:18:50 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by qadmon_rss: Edublogs: SirsiDynix Corp lobby paper against Open Source technologies: Interesting thing in my inbox .. http://bit.ly/4fbgq0...

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:15:19 +0000

Stephen has posted about this and is responding to comments:
http://stephenslighthouse.sirsidynix.com/archives/2009/10/its_about_a_res.html

By: Twitted by DrWeb2

Twitted by DrWeb2 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:17:19 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by DrWeb2 [...]

By: Lissa

Lissa — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:03:04 +0000

Time has not been kind to Stephen. No sources, lots of logical fallacies, innuendo…this isn’t the kind of work he did when he was working for ProQuest Canada.

There are a lot of things you can ding OSS on. I don’t think he hit one of them. This reads more like propaganda points for salescritters than any kind of logical analysis.

I really miss the Stephen I met years ago. Coming south wasn’t good for him.

By: caleb

caleb — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:34:34 +0000

I think it’s a pretty fair look at the challenges of software development on a large scale, for the library community, or anyone really. Any middle manager at Microsoft could have written this.

EXCEPT

Except there’s a strong undercurrent of … venom? Maybe it is just Abram’s rhetorical style, which can be grating (ie not citing sources). This is essentially a memo to people that trust Sirsi, and he can say whatever he wants, and that’s fine. Some examples that jumped out at me though were:

“The open source process is too organic and lacks tight priorities and strong management oversight.”

“…the small libraries of Georgia who are captive to suboptimal
open source systems.”

“Testing is the responsibility of the original programmer and their buddies.”

By: Tweets that mention librarian.net » Blog Archive » SirsiDynix Corp lobby paper against Open Source technologies -- Topsy.com

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:46:25 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Meredith and Scot Colford, sfn. sfn said: wow, librarian.net link to wikileaks document by stephen abram railing against open source ILS (and vendors of) http://tinyurl.com/yj9mryl [...]

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:32:40 +0000

Clifford Lynch has clarified his position somewhat.

http://www.librarytechnology.org/blog.pl?ThreadID=134&BlogID=1