Hi all,
I am pleased to announce that our Beta 1 is now available. You can find more information on my blog...
http://savas.parastatidis.name/2008/10/08/0a59c3e1-0fb7-4c11-9dcc-89db3c8db17d.aspx
.savas.
Hi,
Sounds interesting. I'm currently evaluating repository platforms for a university with a Microsoft technology base. I have a few questions, and would be grateful if you could answer any of them.
How does this product currently compare with DSpace? Is there a development roadmap? When do you expect the first non-beta release? What sorts of integration are planned with SharePoint? How strong is long-term data preservation and OIA-PM access provision in the current release?
Paul TaylorDotcom Software Solutions Ltd
Dear Paul,
Thank you for your interest in our repository platform. I'll try to answer your questions.
- DSpace is a complete repository solution that has been in development for many years and has a great number of deployments. We have an active communication channel with the DSpace, Fedora, and EPrints communities. We are trying to build as many community protocols and formats as possible in order to guarantee interoperability but we are new to this domain so we have a lot of work ahead of us :-) "Famulus" is more like a development platform for repository solutions rather than a complete, standalone solution. We are, however, providing a suite of services and a Web UI for those who want to have something started with just a simple install. In our current milestone (the one that started after beta 1) we are investing on significantly improving the user experience of the Web interface and adding more functionality (e.g. wizard-based uploads, role-based security, much improved user interface, etc.). This is in addition to the platform work we are doing around extensibility, so that repository solution developers can create their own custom applications.
- We are planning to release another public beta very early next year and after few more months we are going to have v1.0.
- We thought really hard about Sharepoint. At this point we don't have any integration. However, we'd be interested to hear about the kind of scenarios you have in mind. Please feel free to send us your thoughts... either through this forum or directly at irplat@microsoft.com.
- Long-term data preservation depends on your installation. We use SQL Server as the backend. As long as you maintain the installation, you preserve the data. Furthermore, if you want to build a solution that doesn't allow deletions of digital objects from the repository, the platform will help you.
- We should have a completely implemetnation of OAI-PMH and OAI-ORE. They are part of the installation package. If you have any problems, please let us know.
Do let us know if your questions were answered and please feel free to ask more or send us feedback.
regards,