What is Open Source? Open source software refers to programs for which the licenses allow users to: 1) freely access, install, and run the software for any purpose; 2) modify the original software; 3) redistribute copies of the original or modified programs; and 4) share modifications with the community. This is in sharp contrast to use of commercially developed software for which a licensing fee is required and user modifications are not permitted, or when changes are made by the campus IT staff and they are not supported.
What is Community Source? Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.
Why is Kuali different from other software development? In addition to being a joint development effort based on the Community Source model, Kuali is the conversion of an existing application that’s been used by Indiana for the last 10 years. Kuali in essence is a recompilation of FIS into another language – a web based language. We are not reinventing the wheel or starting from scratch, additionally, partner schools will have the opportunity to suggest enhancements as FIS is converted to Kuali.
The following FAQs are excerpted from an interview with Brad Wheeler,Associate VP of Information Technology at Indiana University and Chairman of the Kuali Financial Sysetms Board, Campus Technology article-Open Source Finance Is Here - September 15, 2005
We seem to have passed a tipping point in the interest in open source, community-developed applications for higher education. Is that what you’re seeing? At Educause 2004 in Denver, there was so much interest in open source and Sakai that even we were surprised. Sakai changed the atmosphere surrounding open-source application development in higher education. But I don’t think the real story is about open source or about particular products. What’s really momentous is the pace at which the higher education community is coming together to meet its own needs. We are taking a more active role in producing software that is tailored to us and produced under our terms, as we did with Internet2 (www.internet2.edu) and National LambdaRail (www.nlr.net). Sakai and Kuali are just the two leading projects demonstrating the model for software.
What motivates interest in a project like Kuali? There are two principle drivers: customizing to higher education needs, and retaining control of our own destiny through community ownership of the intellectual property rights.
But isn’t Kuali based on financial software that IU developed for its own use? Can other institutions adapt and customize it? Aren’t too many things hardwired into the program? Kuali is based on the overall design of the IU software, not on the software itself. If we started with a blank piece of paper, the project could not be completed at this price tag. We’re moving the proven design from an old technology base to a new one. Of course, everybody has wish lists. So an impressive Functional Council is working on the requirements, from both public and private institutions, with a separate set of representative specialists who scrutinize each module. Our architects and senior developers from all the institutions have been meeting intensively to work out the Kuali nervous system, abstracting the business rules and deciding what should go in which layer. A strength of the project is having input from the seven founding institutions.
What resources must an institution dedicate to adopting Kuali? Does Kuali call for more internal resources than a traditional commercial application? As is, Kuali costs less than a commercial product. It takes a certain amount of expertise to install any software, and you can hire, rent or outsource that expertise, or even use an ASP [application service provider] model and buy the cycles “turnkey” from someone else. One advantage of open source is that it provides a marketplace for buying those services. You have more choices, not just the companies which have been certified in a product by that product’s vendor. A number of commercial firms are now interested in providing Kuali services such as hosting, managing Unix boxes, or even providing a Tier One facility. Or, you may want to do all that yourself, but rent the specialists you need on an as-needed basis. Now that there’s an open source option and nobody has the intellectual property advantage, there is a competitive market for these services, and the rates will be saner.
Will smaller institutions be able to use Kuali? Kuali will work for schools in the smaller Carnegie classes. The core of Kuali is the General Ledger module. Transactions are run against that module and it supports reporting, routing approvals, and the Kuali workflow. A small liberal arts college with 2,000 students can keep the books even if it doesn’t need a sophisticated procurement process or grant tracking right away.
What other licenses do you need to run Kuali? Do they diminish the independence from commercially licensed software? Big schools are implementing Kuali on Oracle, but the software itself is being written with open database interfaces. It will be able to use MySQL (www.mysql.com) or DB2 (www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2), for example. As far as the Java tools (www.sun.com/java) are concerned, the evolution of the Java programming language is still in the hands of Sun. But there are no licensing fees tied to Kuali.
Must an institution be a member of the Kuali group and contribute to the development project in order to be able to use the software? No. It is economically efficient to want to interact with the community, to participate fully in the collective, but nothing is required. Just like Sakai, Kuali is based on an OSI-approved license agreement. We basically say take the software, live long and prosper.
What are the auditors going to say when I tell them we are switching to open source financial software? That’s a great argument for us. Indiana University has extremely rigorous financial controls and internal audit. Passing the internal audit scrutiny of Cornell, Michigan State, and San Joaquin Delta College in California, which is a tough state, should help bolster confidence that the software is being looked at carefully from the auditing standpoint.
If Kuali and other projects like it are demonstrating that the community development model can work for higher education, will we eventually see an open source SIS system, or maybe even a complete higher education ERP system? Is a student ERP next? If somebody chooses to take the model and do that, great. Indiana University is not interested in developing an open source student or HR system at this time. Open source is not a religion for us—it’s economics.
If we download your system, do we need to acquire an Oracle license to run it? An Oracle license is not required. The next release of the software will allow you to run KFS using MySQL. The release is currently scheduled for October 2007.
If we decide to go with an open source database such as MySQL, how does your system work? The release version will run with MySQL and will be tested to work in this environment.
Can I have access to your database tables, schema, and data relationships to access the customization we need to do? We do not currently have ER diagrams available. However, all of the DML comes with the release package. You can install the database and use whatever database tools you have to generate the diagrams. We hope to deliver these types of diagrams in the future, but they aren't available yet.