[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Open Source Webinar, 10 a.m. ET Wed. 3-18-09

[Karen Schneider]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Larry Stamm <lstamm at mcbridebc.com> wrote:

> Karen Schneider writes:
>  > Unfortunately, the webinar software we use doesn't support Linux. When
> we
>  > looked at webinar software, the products that reliably supported Linux
> and
>  > had other key features were very expensive for the number of attendees
> we
>  > need to support. (In fact, finding a product with good Mac support was a
>  > price hurdle, as well, though we were determined to offer that much, at
>  > least.)
>
> I had to laugh at this: a webinar focusing on open source software
> that will exclude users of the main open source operating system!  I
> don't know squat about web conferencing, but surely there must be open
> source alternatives out there for hosting webinars?



Larry, you sound exactly like me last fall (in fact I was expecting someone
to say what you said). :-) I confidently marched into the webinar evaluation
project sure, just SURE I'd find something that supported all three
operating systems, and was also open source.

I mean, you'd think, right?

I assure you that the webinar paradox did not go unnoted... and when a
product becomes more tenable, we'll give it a test drive. We've also been
experimenting with workarounds (that at least connect to the screen, not
over VOIP) and we welcome suggestions and ideas.

Unfortunately, after a very extended tour of the product landscape, I had to
conclude that the webinar-software world is like a lot of small, highly
specialized industries. There is one substantive OSS product and if you told
me that Microsoft invented it to give OSS a bad name, I'd believe you.
Funky, unreliable, cheesy features... oy. Then there are a couple of
nosebleed-expensive proprietary products that support Linux workstations but
are not themselves OSS. Then there are a lot of products that support
Windows, and a few that support Mac and Windows. Some are good, some not so
good. The best Linux workstation support comes from by far the most
expensive product, which is proprietary.

So we have a month-to-month subscription to an excellent product that
suffers from not extending itself to Linux workstations and is also not OSS.
I am surprised to see these comments come so late, in fact, when we had been
announcing webinars since last September. I have had my loins girded all
this time (and let me tell you, extended loin-girding is not for wimps).

I am personally not really a believer in the "gift economy" model. I am a
believer in the benevolence model -- that open source fits into the model of
enlightened, engaged decision-making and tool development, and is crucial to
the future of librarianship. But we all have to pick and choose our battles.
Do I use Open Office? Only when forced to. (I also hate Office 2007, just to
be fair.) I also use Gmail. Does Google give me their code? Indeed they do
not. I even own an iPod, even though I greatly object to the DRM models it
has promoted. I would like to fix every problem I encounter, but sometimes,
we do what we can and let go of the rest.

Evergreen is a great example of OSS because it "tipped" toward being
community software almost at birth. Its size and increasingly diverse
community improve it every day. Our engagement in its development improve us
every day, as well. It is a clear, wise choice for libraries that isn't a
step down from licensed software, but in many ways a step up. As for webinar
software, here's my hunch. We'll see more support for Linux workstations and
perhaps serious OSS contenders as the economy continues to wallow in its
misery, since people are turning more to more to online meetings and in some
cases have mandates to meet electronically. This has become a much more
competitive market (even the spendiest product has repeatedly lowered its
prices in the past year, though it's still the BMW of webinar software) and
it has a lot more interest and attention.

(Oh, and at Equinox we just implemented a new CRM, and guess what? It's
OSS!)

-- 
-- 
| Karen G. Schneider
| Community Librarian
| Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
| Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712
| kgs at esilibrary.com
| Web: http://www.esilibrary.com
| Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009!
| http://solinet.net/evergreen
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