[Dspace-general] Cost/benefit of upgrading to 1.5

[Bram Luyten]

Dear Joseph,

although we have not conducted a formal cost/benefit analysis for upgrading,
following benefits, costs and possible risks might make sense in your
context.

Benefits (some copied from
http://www.dspace.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=63)
* By following the latest (non-beta) releases, you can benefit from the
latest bugfixes and optimalisation.
* (feature) Submission steps can be configured more easily
* (feature) You can configure different browse indices

Costs
* If you intend to customize the user interface, there is a learning curve
for the new Manakin XML UI (with the exception of very very basic
customizations). One of our JSP developers needed around three weeks
fulltime to get really into Manakin development.
* Likewise, if you intend to do custom development, you will need to learn a
thing or two about Maven.

Risks
* Some of the patches you applied or inhouse customizations might not work
anymore and might be difficult to port.
* (very unclear at the moment:) if you intend to perform customizations on
1.5.x, there's a possible risk that these customizations might not be
compatible with the future 2.0 release. If anyone has more information
regarding this, please elaborate.

Your current situation is very important in the equation: for example, we do
conversions of standard 1.4.2 DSpace installations, to standard 1.5.x jsp-ui
DSpace in one day (which basically means following these instructions:
http://dspace.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/dspace/trunk/dspace/docs/update.html#142_15with
a few checks here and there).

Although I fear this is probably a very general answer, I do hope it helps
to some extent (or maybe opens up discussion).

with best regards,

Bram Luyten

-- 
@mire NV
Romeinse Straat 18
3001 Heverlee
Belgium
+32 2 888 29 56

http://www.atmire.com - Institutional Repository Solutions
http://www.togather.eu - Before getting together, get Tog at ther

2008/9/8 Joseph Greene <joseph.greene at ucd.ie>

>  I'm just wondering if there is anyone out there who has done a
> cost/benefit analysis of upgrading to 1.5.x (currently 1.4.2 here) that
> would be willing to share; I'm not too concerned about format or polish,
> just the information. I am currently doing just that and would be very
> interested in seeing what others see as important or not. I have recently
> encountered some scepticism from repository developers in the EU, (perhaps
> it's more accurate to say 'platform agnosticism') which makes me want to be
> that much more sure before we decide to upgrade.
>
>
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
>
>
> Joseph Greene
>
> Institutional Repository Project Manager
>
> University College Dublin
>
> Belfield, Dublin 4
>
>
>
> 353 (0)1 716 7398
>
> joseph.greene at ucd.ie
>
> http://irserver.ucd.ie/dspace/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dspace-general mailing list
> Dspace-general at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general
>
>
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