1,990,059 research outputs found

    Eight Things you should Know about Open Source Integrated Library Systems.

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    Open source library management systems are free alternative to costly commercial library systems. It helps to automate library functions and give a tremendous savings on library automation expenses. User ’s participation in all stages of software project ensures the development of the features that the library really wants. Lack of awareness and knowledge in open source technology among library professionals restrict wide adoption of open source library management system. This article gives an insight into the use and maintenance of open source library management systems

    OATS - Open Source Assistive Technology - a way forward

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    The global Assistive Technology(AT)and Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) software field, while expanding all the time, remains small land very specialised. AT is a relatively under funded field with its players widely spread across the globe. Open sourcing, if managed sensibly and creatively could offer the AT field an inexpensive opportunity to create, share, and above all disseminate good products that have high AT end user value but no (or relatively little)commercial interest or return. Open sourcing offers great potential for AT software users, however currently there are a number of barriers that stop its use in AT situations. It is generally difficult to find on the Internet and there are no specific areas dedicated to developing or downloading AT software. Open source software can also be unfriendly to install, often obliging the user to download many different packages before it can be used. This project is investigating the viability of the open source model for the future development of AT software. The OATS project removes these barriers to Open Source AT software: users will have a single point of contact for obtaining open source software and developers will have a forum to write software to meet the needs of specific users. The potential uses and market factors involved with Open Source AT software will be investigated and the underlying concepts promoted. Open Sourcing is a well-established and growing method of software development and it has potential to be beneficial within the Assistive Technology field. Open Source development allows multiple developers to work on software simultaneously even on different sides of the world it also encourages a very close relationship between the user and the developer. Many developers are looking to use their skills on interesting, challenging and worthwhile projects and offer a potential resource for the field that has not so far been utilised. Open Source also allows customisation to software Ĺ“ an important aspect when working with such a diverse range of users as exist within the Assistive Technology community. Further to this, Open Source promotes common standards Ĺ“ something very much lacking in existing Assistive Technology software Ĺ“ and could allow better portability for users between programs. The main deliverable of this project is a website where users can find appropriate software to meet their needs and Open Source developers can find exciting and interesting projects. This software 'Repository' has a user-friendly web interface to allow users to browse the software and download/installitwith ease. The second part of the website, the 'Forge', allows software developers to find motivating, interesting and useful projects. The 'Forge' also provides a wide range of Open Source development tools including Subversion CVS (a tool to enable 'source code' to be stored on-line and for multiple developers to access it)and Trac(a project management tool and bug-tracking system). The site is developed using Plone - a powerful content management system that allows users control over their own project areas and provides a range of tools such as polls, noticeboards, FAQs etc. The website is fully accessible and meets the W3C WAI guidelines. To summarise the OATS project and website offers: - Downloadable Open Source AT software that is of sufficient quality to disseminate widely. - A 'forge' for the development of new Open Source AT software based on specific user needs. - A searchable list of links to other related websites - A discussion forum to promote discussion between end users, AT professionals and Open Source developers. And, in the longer term, itcouldalso provide: - Specific solutions to individual needs by 'tuning' existing applications - End users with help to develop solutions themselve

    OATS - Open Source Assistive Technology - a way forward

    Get PDF
    The global Assistive Technology(AT)and Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) software field, while expanding all the time, remains small land very specialised. AT is a relatively under funded field with its players widely spread across the globe. Open sourcing, if managed sensibly and creatively could offer the AT field an inexpensive opportunity to create, share, and above all disseminate good products that have high AT end user value but no (or relatively little)commercial interest or return. Open sourcing offers great potential for AT software users, however currently there are a number of barriers that stop its use in AT situations. It is generally difficult to find on the Internet and there are no specific areas dedicated to developing or downloading AT software. Open source software can also be unfriendly to install, often obliging the user to download many different packages before it can be used. This project is investigating the viability of the open source model for the future development of AT software. The OATS project removes these barriers to Open Source AT software: users will have a single point of contact for obtaining open source software and developers will have a forum to write software to meet the needs of specific users. The potential uses and market factors involved with Open Source AT software will be investigated and the underlying concepts promoted. Open Sourcing is a well-established and growing method of software development and it has potential to be beneficial within the Assistive Technology field. Open Source development allows multiple developers to work on software simultaneously even on different sides of the world it also encourages a very close relationship between the user and the developer. Many developers are looking to use their skills on interesting, challenging and worthwhile projects and offer a potential resource for the field that has not so far been utilised. Open Source also allows customisation to software Ĺ“ an important aspect when working with such a diverse range of users as exist within the Assistive Technology community. Further to this, Open Source promotes common standards Ĺ“ something very much lacking in existing Assistive Technology software Ĺ“ and could allow better portability for users between programs. The main deliverable of this project is a website where users can find appropriate software to meet their needs and Open Source developers can find exciting and interesting projects. This software 'Repository' has a user-friendly web interface to allow users to browse the software and download/installitwith ease. The second part of the website, the 'Forge', allows software developers to find motivating, interesting and useful projects. The 'Forge' also provides a wide range of Open Source development tools including Subversion CVS (a tool to enable 'source code' to be stored on-line and for multiple developers to access it)and Trac(a project management tool and bug-tracking system). The site is developed using Plone - a powerful content management system that allows users control over their own project areas and provides a range of tools such as polls, noticeboards, FAQs etc. The website is fully accessible and meets the W3C WAI guidelines. To summarise the OATS project and website offers: - Downloadable Open Source AT software that is of sufficient quality to disseminate widely. - A 'forge' for the development of new Open Source AT software based on specific user needs. - A searchable list of links to other related websites - A discussion forum to promote discussion between end users, AT professionals and Open Source developers. And, in the longer term, itcouldalso provide: - Specific solutions to individual needs by 'tuning' existing applications - End users with help to develop solutions themselve

    Fair value on commons-based intellectual property assets: Lessons of an estimation over Linux kernel.

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    Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials, spreading development burden amongst individuals and companies. This model has resulted in a large and efficient ecosystem and unheralded software innovation, freely available to society. Open source methods are also increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavour, such as biotechnology or cultural production. But under financial reporting framework, general volunteer activity is not reflected on financial statements. As a result, there is not value of volunteer contributions and there is also no single source for cost estimates of how much it has taken to develop an open source technology. This volunteer activity encloses not only individuals but corporations developing and contributing open source products. Standard methodology for reporting open source asset valuation is needed and must include value creation from the perspective of the different stakeholders.FLOSS, commons, accounting standards, financial reporting

    General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT)

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    The General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) is a space trajectory optimization and mission analysis system developed by NASA and private industry in the spirit of the NASA Mission. GMAT contains new technology and is a testbed for future technology development. The goal of the GMAT project is to develop new space trajectory optimization and mission design technology by working inclusively with ordinary people, universities, businesses, and other government organizations, and to share that technology in an open and unhindered way. GMAT is a free and open source software system licensed under the NASA Open Source Agreement: free for anyone to use in development of new mission concepts or to improve current missions, freely available in source code form for enhancement or further technology development

    The Legal Issues Surrounding Free and Open Source Software: Challenges and Solutions for the Government of Québec

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    The Government of Québec is slowly but surely turning its attention to the issue of free and open source software in response to the interest shown by Québec’s software industry and the attention paid to the phenomenon by governments around the world. This openness is easy to understand given an environment in which online service provision to citizens must be enhanced while minimizing expenditures on technology, curtailing service providers’ control over the administration, and promoting the development of the information society in Québec. Nonetheless, as we see in the news, adoption of this new attitude toward to software development is not always immune to legal challenges. Consequently, the manner in which Québec law interacts with free and open source software, as well as the associated risks, assume a particular significance. The analysis we present here reveals that the law, as it currently stands in Québec, appears adequate to effectively address the various legal issues inherent in the use of free and open source software. First of all, no legal rule seems to be incompatible with the validity of free and open source licences, despite that fact that few of them were designed with the Québec legal system in mind. Moreover, both federal copyright rules and Québec regulations affecting contractual liability allow the authors and users of free and open source software to effectively preserve the freedom of computer code, which is typically the purpose of free and open source licences. Nonetheless, it remains the case that some legal risks are associated with free and open source software. These risks may arise from the formalism requirements included in the Copyright Act, prior violations of intellectual property rights by third parties, or simply from the broader contractual protection afforded to licensors. Consequently, integrating free and open source software into the technology strategy of the Government of Québec requires setting up some initiatives to allow these risks to be mitigated as much as possible and to enable the management of those risks that cannot be completely eliminated.

    General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT): Mission, Vision, and Business Case

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    The Goal of the GMAT project is to develop new space trajectory optimization and mission design technology by working inclusively with ordinary people, universities businesses and other government organizations; and to share that technology in an open and unhindered way. GMAT's a free and open source software system; free for anyone to use in development of new mission concepts or to improve current missions, freely available in source code form for enhancement or future technology development

    T-infinity: The Dependency Inversion Principle for Rapid and Sustainable Multidisciplinary Software Development

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    The CFD Vision 2030 Study recommends that, NASA should develop and maintain an integrated simulation and software development infrastructure to enable rapid CFD technology maturation.... [S]oftware standards and interfaces must be emphasized and supported whenever possible, and open source models for noncritical technology components should be adopted. The current paper presents an approach to an open source development architecture, named T-infinity, for accelerated research in CFD leveraging the Dependency Inversion Principle to realize plugins that communicate through collections of functions without exposing internal data structures. Steady state flow visualization, mesh adaptation, fluid-structure interaction, and overset domain capabilities are demonstrated through compositions of plugins via standardized abstract interfaces without the need for source code dependencies between disciplines. Plugins interact through abstract interfaces thereby avoiding N 2 direct code-to-code data structure coupling where N is the number of codes. This plugin architecture enhances sustainable development by controlling the interaction between components to limit software complexity growth. The use of T-infinity abstract interfaces enables multidisciplinary application developers to leverage legacy applications alongside newly-developed capabilities. While rein, a description of interface details is deferred until the are more thoroughly tested and can be closed to modification

    Open-source Software: Adoption and Challenges

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    © ASEE 2015Adopting open-source software (OSS) can help reduce the cost of personal computers for individuals as well as the cost of information technology infrastructure for companies. Many studies corroborated the superiority of Linux (open-source operating system) when compared to Windows. Linux, or any other open-source software, offers robustness, flexibility on top of a homogeneous solution and a support from a huge community. The purpose of this paper is to study the adoption open source software, mainly Linux. The discussion will encompass the growth of the open source community, the horizons, and the obstacles. The study also aims to cover the feasibility of the adoption of the open-source software at a Research and Development environment, where reducing the cost of the information technology infrastructure opens doors for more scalability and increase in performance
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