Relais Backtracks on Open Source Commitment

I couldn't find this recent press release on the Relais website, so have pasted in the original e-mail release below. Probably best for me not to comment beyond the lack of surprise that Relais has no open source product, or even a strategy, 2 years after announcing their intentions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2010
 
Update on Relais and Open Source
 
In 2008 Relais International announced that we would make parts of our Relais products open source.  This has however remained a low priority for us in light of other commitments to customers; as a result we have not yet made a release under an open source license.  Currently our resources are focussed on the launch of Relais D2D – Discovery to Delivery - we will provide an update on the status of an open source license by the end of 2010 after the implementation of Relais D2D.
 
Relais International remains fully committed to ensuring our products, including Relais D2D, are open.  This affords our customers the maximum flexibility in integrating Relais with systems in their own libraries.  To this end Relais actively supports well known library standards such as NCIP, Z39.50, OpenURL and ISO 10160/1 (ISO ILL).  In addition we offer and continue to develop web services to facilitate interaction between disparate systems – for example the ability to add and query requests. 
 
Relais™ International Inc is based in Ottawa, Canada and has been selling systems to support resource sharing, interlibrary loan and document delivery services since 1996.  Relais International (www.relais-intl.com) assists libraries in implementing intelligent and automated methods to support requesting through to delivery of documents. Relais products range from scanning stations through to fully integrated request management, scanning and delivery software suitable for a single library through to a consortium.
 
For more details contact:
 
Dan Denault                            [email protected]
Relais International Inc.
Phone: 888-294-5244 X 229 (in North America)    +1-613-226-5571 X 229

Comments

[Dan Scott]

I guess the old saw is true: all the press releases in the world don't matter, it ain't open source until they show you the source and an OSI-approved license.

Err, is that an old saw? Sadly, the likely effect of this is that people who would otherwise have gotten very tired of the stagnant state of ILL software and started working on something to replace it (in a free software context, of course) focused on other projects, instead. Now we have a two-year deficit to add up. And my Ariel client is looking really nastily old at this point...