Saturday, May 13, 2017

Design Requirements for Better Open Source Tools

OSS4Pres 2.0: Design Requirements for Better Open Source Tools. Heidi Elaine Kelly. bloggERS! April 25, 2017.
     Free and Open Source Software need to "integrate easily with digital preservation institutional systems and processes.” The FOSS Development Requirements Group created a design guide for to ensure easier adoption of open-source tools and their integration with other software and tools.

Minimum Necessary Requirements for FOSS Digital Preservation Tool Development. The premise is that "digital preservation is an operating system-agnostic field."

Necessities
  • Provide publicly accessible documentation and an issue tracker
  • Have a documented process so people can contribute to development, report bugs, and suggest new documentation
  • Every tool should do the smallest possible task really well; if you are developing an end-to-end system, develop it in a modular way in keeping with this principle
  • Follow established standards and practices for development and use of the tool
  • Keep documentation up-to-date and versioned
  • Follow test-driven development philosophy
  • Don’t develop a tool without use cases, and stakeholders willing to validate those use cases
  • Use an open and permissive software license to allow for integrations and broader use
Recommendations
  • Have a mailing list or other means for community interaction
  • Establish community guidelines
  • Provide a well-documented mechanism for integration with other tools/systems
  • Provide functionality of tool as a library, separate UI from the actual functions
  • Package tool in an easy-to-use way, that supports any dependencies
  • Provide examples of functionality for potential users
  • Consider the long-term sustainability of the tool
  • Consider a way for internationalization of the tool  

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