Dale Askey has written a great column on how libraries “share and fail to share open source software” and looks into some of the reasons that might be the case.
3 thoughts on “why don’t librarians like to give their code away?”
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I took part in a FLYP conference a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at how state funds had paid for artwork for the Florida Youth Program, but there were all sorts of limitations on what Florida libraries could do with that artwork even in promoting those programs.
This was commissioned artwork and would probably be considered akin to contractor or subcontractor reports, which can (unfortunately) be paid for by public money but maintain copyright.
Still: after about 45 minutes of talking about dos and don’ts in regard to this artwork I found myself wishing that all work done by or for the government, at all levels (including state, county, and city), were automatically in the public domain.
I had the great privilege to see Dale do the rudimentary talk at Access 2008 that led to this article. Very smart man.