Ramblings about library technology, open source software, and other adventures!

The BBC News Web site had an interesting column by Bill Thompson yesterday titled “Open Societies need open systems.” The subtitle, “Openness, like democracy, must be constantly defended, says Bill Thompson” basically acts as a partial abstract as well. In this article he looks at Amazon’s disagreement with Macmillan that resulted in Amazon briefly de-listing all Macmillan stock and removing it from its indexes and the Apple/Adobe keruffle of Flash on the iPhone and soon to be released iPad.

I’m not quite sure how the Amazon/Macmillian dispute effects Democracy, or Openness for that matter, but it does go to show that highly successful retailers such as Amazon and Walmart can make it more or less difficult for a producer of a product to get it in the hands of consumer. Amazon, no doubt, felt that by trying to prevent different pricing for e-books it was helping the consumer (and thus it’s self) but obviously authors like Charlie Stross quoted in the article as saying “Amazon [has] screwed me, and I tend to take that personally, because they didn’t need to do that” saw it differently.

The Apple and Adobe situation I see differently, and while I do believe that while Apple is looking out for its own corporate interests, Apple also does want more Openness on the Web. As a company with a minority operating system share, the more open the Web is the better chance they have to compete. Adobe, on the other hand wants to, as Thompson puts it, “close off the web to non-Flash content.” While Apple, with its stance on DRM and other issues, has not always been a strong supporter of Openness, I believe in this case they are squarely on the side of Openness by support HTML5 and H.264 over continuing to enable the proprietary Adobe Flash format to be the de facto standard for video on the Web. Thus I find it a bit odd that Thompson appears to be supporting Adobe on this issue. Thompson says:

Just as we must work to retain our democratic forms of government in the face of adversity, so we must constantly be alert for those who would remove open systems in the name of efficiency and effectiveness.

He may be right that not installing Flash on the iPhone and iPad is in Apple’s best interest but I don’t see it as anti-Openness. Sometimes Openness and corporate interests can align, and I believe in this particular case Apple is on the side of Openness and Adobe is on the side of a closed, proprietary Web. At the very least, even if Apple is not a friend of Openness, neither is Adobe. Proprietary technologies and formats as de facto Web standards are a much greater threat to Openness than devices that don’t support them.

In looking at this issue from a Democracy 2.0 and access to information situation, libraries need to be aware of potential problems with proprietary formats and what devices can and will support them. If librarians believe that access to information is important for democracy, we need to make sure when we acquire (via licensing or purchasing) that the content is in a format that will be accessible to out patrons now and into the future.

Note: This is post is a modified version of a comment I originally posted on Carl Grant’s blog. If you already read it, move on. Nothing new to see here.

Carl Grant recently made a post about Balancing innovation and focus that had a huge bent towards the question of investing in Open Source Software (OSS)

I agree with Carl that many libraries could use more focus when implementing new technology but I strongly disagree that this is any different when it comes to OSS versus proprietary applications. None of his critique is specific to OSS and signally out of OSS to me is a bit of a non sequitur. Many proprietary applications, including some of Ex Libris’ offerings, need a great deal of customization and often just as much, if not more, staff to implement and maintain as Open Source. I was talking to a proprietary ILS administrator from another University last year and they have twice as many systems people working on their ILS then Georgia Pines had to original develop Evergreen. Another example about three years ago a University had four new job advertisements to help them implement a new proprietary discovery layer. People like David Walker have put into a lot of work implementing a custom interface on top of Metalib. Are these wasted, redundant efforts? Why is this different then focusing efforts on OSS? It’s not any different. Or if it is, one could argue that at least a library would have the software to change and modify like University of Rochester did with Dspace in creating IR+ which they couldn’t do if they put all their previous efforts into a proprietary product that ended up not suiting their needs. This is not an OSS issue, it is a technology issue and a management issue. It is just as easy to say that Ex Libris building Primo Central (or whatever product you want to name) is “redundant and poorly coordinated investments” considering other vendors are in this space.

Carl’s underlying point “that librarianship is in need of a clear definition of the future of the profession and to examine how technology (open source or proprietary) will move that definition to fruition and, at the same time, leverage librarianship” is well taking and I agree. Libraries should evaluate each technology acquisition carefully considering need, budget, skill level, mission, etc. This evaluation may or may not lead to an existing OSS or propitiatory solution, developing a new OSS or home-grown solution, partnering with a vendor on a new product (such as the URM development partners are doing with Ex Libris), or not implementing anything at all. But dividing the world between Open Source and proprietary applications only serves in muddying the water and weakening this message.

That’s a lot of text for a non sequitur, no?

In a campus IT meeting during a discussion about strategic planning one of the faculty members brought up the idea of a technology-free zone. Apparently he heard about some other college implementing such a thing. The committee decided to think about it and discuss it at a future meeting. I did think a campus-wide technology planning committee coming up with the idea of a technology-free zone a bit ironic. Anyway, I posted a brief tweet about this irony on facebook, twitter, and identi.ca and I got some good responses aboiut why this might be a good or bad idea. Dan Scott did point out we better “[g]et the level of technology right for those zones; otherwise, no clothes.” With that warning, lets look at technology-free zones when technolgy is defined to not include clothing.

After reading some comments (mostly on Facebook), I am thinking about this more. I did a quick Google search and when limited to .edu domains, it appears not many universities have such an area (I’m sure more than the few I found do, but they probably call it something different). I think if a campus is going to do this, a library makes a logical choice. Setting up such a zone shouldn’t cost too much money. Mostly some furniture: maybe with some comfy chairs and plants like the UW-Parkside Teaching and Learning Center? I think the bigger issues are 1) Space, and 2) Will they use it.

Space: I don’t know many libraries that have too much space. So, with limited space, is a technology-free zone a good use of space. That obviously would vary library-by-library and campus-by-campus.

Will they use it: On facebook I mentioned that none is forcing people to use technology and most libraries have quiet study areas. So, why make a technology-free zone? A former colleague mentioned that in most quiet areas there is still “residual noise” such as music from ear bugs and keyboard chatter. So really, a technology-free zone does offer something that a quiet study does not. That still doesn’t mean people would use it though.

Personally, I think if a library has a space it would be worth trying, or at least worth surveying students to see if they were interested. What’s the worse that can happen? No one comes, so after a year you re-purpose the space as a quiet study or group study or anything else. However, I’m not sure it would be worth trying this if it meant eliminating other spaces (such as quiet-study) or services. I say this mostly because with so much of of the information libraries are providing require technology to access, it could cause issues. Does anyone work in a library that has or had a technology-free zone? I’d love to hear how it worked.

I was debating whether or not to invest valuable time in reading the 2010 Horizon Report on emerging technologies in higher education until I found out it was on the agenda for an upcoming meeting of a campus IT committee I am a member of. Thus, my decision was made, I had to read it. So, read it I did. I’m guessing most everyone that is interested in the report has already at least read about it, but just in case, the six technologies they focused on this year were (time to adoption in parentheses):

1. Mobile Computing (1 year or less)
2. Open Content (1 year or less)
3. E-Books (2 to 3 years)
4. Simple Augmented Reality (2 to 3 years)
5. Gesture-based computing (4 to 5 years)
6. Visual Data Analysis (4 to 5 years)

While the report does list a lot of good reasons for these technologies in higher education, they do not focus on libraries. Instead of repeating or rebutting what they said for higher ed as a whole, lets look at this from the academic library perspective.

Mobile Computing: People who talk to me on a regular basis about library technology probably know I’m a bit of a detractor of this whole mobile computing bandwagon as it relates to libraries. Certainly there are some who think it is the next big thing, so maybe I’m wrong. Heck, there are whole conferences devoted to mobile computing in libraries. Basically, I see mobile computing as a time-limited market – especially when it comes to libraries. I do see a reason to make some of the core pages of the academic library Web site (hours, contact information, maybe the catalog) but I don’t see a need for special iPhone apps or anything like that. I heard Joshua Kim present a Webinar the other day and he said that the demand from students for mobile community has been highly over-estimated by many information technologists. I agree.

There are reasons to be skeptical. But even if I were less skeptical about students wanted to use the library from there phone while they were hiking, I think a bigger reason into to invest too heavily in this is that mobile devices keep on improving. By the time that there is 1) interest from users, and 2) applications that they want to use, the devices will basically be able to do anything a laptop can, so it won’t be necessary to design services for mobile computing. What is and will remain more important is to design Web-based services and resources using open standards and make sure that they are accessible and limit the sue of propitiatory formats and applications whenever possible. If this is done, the mobile problem will most likely take care of itself. HTML5 may help with this.

Open Content: What I found interesting about the 2010 Horizon Report’s section on Open Content is that they were focused mainly on open courses, and maybe to a lesser degree on open lectures. Here in the library-world we seem a bit more focused on open access journals. There has been a lot written about the latter from a library perspective, even something by me, so lets look at open courses from a library perspective. What does it mean? How should libraries be involved? I’m still trying to figure that out. Certainly librarians can create open “courses” on searching databases, evaluating resources, etc., but should libraries be involved in curating open course materials, entering them into the library catalog or discovery layer? I can see some strong benefits to this, but would faculty want us to be preserving materials? What about faculty that do this outside of official mechanisms? I don’t think there is any technical reason why libraries couldn’t be involved, but there may be policy and staffing issues. This is something that I think librarians need to keep on their radar screens.

E-books: It is interesting that the report said e-books are two to three years away while I know that many academic libraries have been providing access to e-books for a while. What was also interesting about the report was when they were provide examples about e-books and libraries they seemed to focus more on recreational reading than academic reading. Obviously e-books are here. What will it mean for libraries? I’m not sure longterm. One thing I am wondering is how the market will go? If we are purchasing e-books, from company X and they are hosting, what happens if they go out of business? What about privacy? E-books are here, but there are still a lot of policy and access issues to be addressed.

Simple Augmented Reality: I’m not really sure what role academic libraries can play here. We can make library tours, and maybe provide access to equipment, software, and/or space. But at this point I am having a hard time seeing where libraries fit in except on the fringes. That’s okay though, we don’t have to be involved with every new technology. That said, I’d be interested to see what library specific applications others see for augmented reality.

Gesture-based computing: Gesture-based computing is another one that I’m not sure where an academic library fits in. Like augmented reality, I can see libraries playing a role in provide equipment, software, and spaces, but library-focused uses are not as obvious to me. Maybe in four to five years they will be. I would say, the one technology in this area I’m interested is the newly announced Apple iPad. While multi-touch screens are not the end-all and be-all of gesture-based computing, they do have there place. It will be interesting to see if libraries look at innovative ways to use this product (and the competitors that are sure to come if it proves successful). Personally, I can see us lending these out instead of or in addition to laptops or netbooks, but library-specific applications for gesture-based computing seem less likely. However, what I can see happening is the development of gesture-based hardware and software designed to help those with disabilities. I think that is one area librarians should keep an eye on.

Visual Data Analysis: I think the area of large data sets is one area where academic libraries could play a large role in the future. Will they is another question. While there are some academic libraries involved with large data sets, I am not sure that librarian-involvement is wide spread. Large datasets are going to continue to both grow in size and number. Will libraries be involved with maintaining and preserving them? I would hope so. This would allow researchers to focus on there research and I believe that libraries have the knowledge and ethics of preserving information that they would be a good choice on campus to put this responsibility. Whether that will happen though is unclear. While libraries are a good choice to me, there are other campus entities that may also step up to the plate like campus computing or the division of research. Libraries need to keep vigilant about this field and any mid- to large-sized activity make sure that at least a few of the librarians are aware of the issues of preserving and maintaining datasets so that they can speak knowledgeable about the subject when approached. I am not sure if we have to lead the way, but we need to be prepared to be at the table and to offer ideas and solutions. As far as for visualized data analysis, I just see that as an outgrowth of data sets. Researchers need tools to access datasets. If libraries are involved with helping to preserve and maintain data, they will be involved with providing visualization tools and instruction

Today I was adding some files to our EPrints-based repository and was asked to assign a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike US 3.0 license to them. By default, our repository various had Creative Commons licenses included, but they were neither the United States one, or 3.0 (they were 2.5). I figured this was just a matter of editing the phrases since I didn’t really want to have both the CC-NC-SA 3.0 US and the CC-NC-SA 2.5 licenses in the repository. However, it was a little more difficult then that. EPrints is, I think, a lot more powerful then sometimes it is credited for. Some of the power lies in the various format files.

After some searching on EPrints wiki and Google I couldn’t find out how to do this. This is when I turned to the all powerful grep command to search for phrases in files, and I was able to figure out which files contained the information I needed to change. It turns out there are a few different tasks that must be done and they may not be apparent at first. One of those files the contains information related to license information is a Namedset file. This file tells e-prints the codes to use for licenses. My original on looked like:

eprints@elekhasik:~$ more archives/binghamton/cfg/namedsets/licenses

# types for document licenses
cc_by_nd
cc_by
cc_by_nc
cc_by_nc_nd
cc_by_nc_sa
cc_by_sa
cc_public_domain
cc_gnu_gpl
cc_gnu_lgpl

To add a new document license type, all one needs to do is add a new code. Incidentally, the licenses appear in the E-prints editing pages in the ordered listed here. To make things easier on future depositors, instead of simply changing the cc_by_nc_sa license, I decided to make a new one called cc_binghamton. I did this so that people depositing things will know this is our libraries’ default license.

EPrints by default uses the installation-wide (versus repository based) system.xml file to translate the code to phrases for both the depository screens and public view. The two phrases that need to be read are the
licenses_typename_XXXX and licenses_description_XXXX phrases. However, E-prints comes with a warning saying “DON’T EDIT THESE FILES…. Editing the contents of this directory is not recommended.” Okay then, I’m not touching these then. Instead, anything in the system.xml file can be overridden by placing the phrases in any file located in the eprints3/archives/ARCHIVEID/cfg/lang/en/phrases directory. Not wanting to cross that warning, I did just that. While technically the phrases can be in any file, I decided to create a new file in that directory called zz_licenses.xml. The “zz” part tells me it is of my own creation and, if I recall correctly, the files are read in alphabetical order so, it gets processed at the end. As I mentioned, I added a new license called cc_binghamton. So, I needed to add entries for that. I also decided to update the CC-NC-SA to point to the 3.0 US version so I didn’t have to go back and change any previous submissions. I just followed the phrase format from the system.xml, changing the values. Besides properly adding the phrase ID, there is some file header information required. My resulting file looked like this:

<epp:phrases xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”
xmlns:epp=”http://eprints.org/ep3/phrase”
xmlns:epc=”http://eprints.org/ep3/control”>

<epp:phrase id=”licenses_typename_cc_by_nc_sa”>Creative Commons Non-commercial Attribution Share Alike
<epp:phrase id=”licenses_description_cc_by_nc_sa”><a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/”>Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike US 3.0
<epp:phrase id=”licenses_typename_cc_binghamton”>Binghamton Library Staff</epp:phrase>
<epp:phrase id=”licenses_description_cc_binghamton”><a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/”>Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike US 3.0</a></epp:phrase>
</epp:phrases>

Note that because the description is the same, they will both look the same to the end-user.

Wait, your not done yet! If you added a new license type, you will need to reload your EPrints configuration and restart apache:

eprints@elekhasik:~$ bin/epadmin reload ARCHIVEID
eprints@elekhasik:~$ sudo apache2ctl restart

Also, you will need to at least generate new abstracts (or wait for cron to do it assuming you have it configured). I decided to create new abstracts, static pages, and views just to be safe although I am not sure that they are all required.

eprints@elekhasik:~$ bin/generate_static ARCHIVEID
eprints@elekhasik:~$ bin/generate_views ARCHIVEID
eprints@elekhasik:~$ bin/generate_abstracts ARCHIVEID

That’s it. It is pretty simple once you know how to do it.

I finally had a chance to look over Marshall Breeding’s Perceptions 2009: An International Survey of Library Automation. As Dan Scott mentions on his blog post In which I perceive that gossip is not science (and Breeding acknowledges in the comments), it is not scientific. I do think it is a little more than gossip… at least with vendors where the n → 50.

That said, one thing I do think is that comparing the numbers from one vendor or ILS to another doesn’t mean very much, For example, Apollo was rated very high, but the needs and expectations of someone running Apollo is much different from someone running Voyager or Aleph. In fact, they don’t even serve the same audiences as Apollo is marketed to small and medium public libraries while Voyager and Aleph is marketed more towards Academic, Special, and national libraries.

What I do find interesting is trends. While the people filling out the survey are not the same every year, it is interesting if one ILS or company’s score goes up or down. Being that I’m on the ELUNA Steering Committee and have worked with Aleph and Voyager more than any other ILS, I focused on the scores they received over the last three years. The three questions I looked at were:

• How satisfied is the library with your current Integrated Library System (ILS)?
• How satisfied is the library overall with the company from which you purchased your current ILS?
• How satisfied is this library with this company’s customer support services?

Breeding also asked “How likely is it that this library will purchase its next ILS from this company?” and about likelihood of migrating to an Open Source ILS, but I think there are many other factors in those questions that don’t reflect on the quality of the software or company providing support so I’m ignoring them. For example, Ex Libris is coming out with the URM. If I’m a smaller academic or special library, I may decide I do not want or need URM so I may go elsewhere if I were choosing an ILS no matter how much I like the company. Likewise, if Ex Libris is the only one in the URM market place when I’m looking at a new system, I may go with them even if I am happy with whatever company provides the ILS I’m currently using.

With three years of responses to look at, what is the trend for Ex Libris’ two ILSs? I’m happy to report, that over the last three years in every case (excepting one) the numbers improved. They might not have in regards to a statistical difference, but still that is a positive trend. The one case where it did go down was that Voyager users felt slightly less happy about Voyager in 2009 vs. 2008 (5.91 vs. 6.01). It was still higher than 2007 (5.53)). That is a relatively minor fluctuation and is within standard deviation. So overall, the trends for comparing Ex Libris with it’s self is positive.

On the Aleph side, Ex Libris had some pretty high jumps from 2008 to 2009. In fact from 2007 to 2009, the perception of customer support for Aleph went up over a point (4.87 to 5.90).

So while the scores for Aleph were generally in the middle tier, and by just looking at numbers, Breeding is correct that “Voyager did not fare quite as well on the survey” a look at the trends show Ex Libris in a more positive light.

That said, Dan Scott does have a good point that this is not science and gossip. But usually there is some truth in gossip.

I recently learned that the extended abstract I submitted to “Networking Democracy: New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics’ Symposium” has been accepted. The conference is going to be held at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania at the end of June. Needless to say, I am very excited. My presentation is titled the same as this blog post, Libraries, the Public Sphere, and Democracy 2.0. Like all good things, there is a downside. Now that my abstract has been accepted, I have to write a paper that is up to 7,000 words long.

While I am knowledgeable about the subject (especially the “Libraries” part) there is still a lot of research I need to do for this paper. I remember back in graduate school I was asked to make annotated bibliographies for some of the papers I wrote. I am going to do this as I do my research, along with taking out a few of the quotes I may want to use. Typically when I have done this in the past I used my favorite text editor. However this time there is going to be a twist. With this post I am creating a new blog category, democracy2.0. I will be posting my annotated bibliography (and related notes) as I research and prepare my paper on this blog.

I hope readers find this interesting. I believe it will be for most of my readers (or at least my perception of who reads this – librarians and open source/free software proponents). If not, please just mark them as read as you find them in your e-reader. As you would imagine, I did a lot of research before submitting my extended abstract, so I will also be posting my notes from some of my previous research as well as new research. I should add, what I post will be parts of my scholarly process and not necessarily points I agree or disagree with and they may or not make it into my final paper. It should be noted this is a bibliography with a specific purpose: to help me write a specific paper on a specific topic. Thus these collections of posts are not to be comprehensive, so please don’t assume it is. Still, I think it could be useful to others with similar interests.

Although my purpose for doing this is not to solicit feedback on what I’m reading or researching, if reading my posts makes you think of related ideas or articles (especially scholarly ones), please feel free to comment and share.

The New York Times published an interview with Cristóbal Conde, president and C.E.O. of SunGard on 16 January 2010. The interview is about leadership and is well worth a read for anyone at any level (or desire) of leadership. I could point out many things that struck me, but using Conde’s concept of everything in threes, I’ll point out three.

1. Threes: The idea behind this is you can give a list of things of people to do or priorities, but that doesn’t mean they can remember it all. Instead focus on a handful of things, which Conde translates into threes. For example when he does a review, he always points out three things that are going well, and three things that need improvement. Since everything knows he does this, they don’t take the three negatives as personal as the otherwise would.
2. PowerPoint: Conde said he “actively despise[s] how people use PowerPoint as a crutch.” He instead believes people should write a proposal before the meeting and assume everyone has read it. One reason Conde doesn’t like PowerPoint is that “PowerPoint can be a way to cover up sloppy thinking, which makes it hard to differentiate between good ideas and bad ideas.” Added to this is the question if a meeting added value? If it is mostly a deck of PowerPoint slides, typically Conde believes “you conveyed information, but you didn’t actually add value.”
3. Time Management: Conde said that one of the thing he tries to block off an hour and a half every day to” go somewhere that doesn’t have a PC or a phone” so he can think. He thinks many entry level people do not have enough to to think and are bombarding with information. I don’t know about others, but I certainly am. Since so much of my work is computer based, I doubt I can do this with 1.5 hours of my day, but I think I may try to build in some part of my day to do this. Even if it is just 30 minutes after I get my mid-morning coffee. This reminds me of something John Maeda said at TED 2007, “Vacation is the most important skill for any kind of over-achiever.”

Here is my final top 10 of the season. Boise State with their bowl victory over TCU is my number one. Alabama, the other undeafeated, is number two. Why, you ask, Boise over Alabama? Simple: Out-of-conference schedule. Boise beat three bowl teams, including PAC-10 champion Oregon, out-of-conference during the regular season and another team that won their conference chapionship (UC-Davis). How many bowl teams out-of-conference did Alabama beat? One. Who else did ‘Bama schedule out of conference you ask? Two of the worst three teams from the Sun Belt and a team that is not even in the BCS-subdivision (Chattanooga). What makes the Chattanooga game even worse is that it was scheduled in November! Let me repeat that: November! And not even the begining of November!

This means one or more of a few things things, ‘Bama (and most of the SEC) is scared of playing a quality out-of-conference opponent (esp. on the road – the Va Tech game was a neutral site, 2) they are trying to stack their record, 3) they are trying to rest up for a team that they are concerned they other-wise would have lost to (and the team they played afterwards, Auburn, they almost did lose to as they also almost lost to Tennessee at home earlier in the season – and without some questionable officiating they would have lost one of those games). Seriously, scheduling Chattanooga in November should count as a loss.

I know SEC apologists will say that the SEC is tougher than the WAC. That may be so, but I don’t see the SEC offering a spot to Boise State. I am not going to credit the conference for locking other teams out. In other words, just because your rich, I’m not going to make you richer. You have to earn it, and by not playing quality out-of-conference opponents (esp. on the road in hostile environments) you are not earning it. Now maybe if the SEC would drop teams that are at the bottom of the league and add teams from other leagues that were good, I’d by the strength of conference schedule argument. However, your cartel is no good here. You can’t say that they didn’t play anyone when you refuse to travel to play a good team north of the Mason-Dixon line or west of the Mississippi. You didn’t play anyone in the part of schedule you control: the out-of-conference schedule. I’m not a huge Southern Cal fan, but at least they go on the road and play teams like Ohio State and Notre Dame.

Still, credit ‘Bama with a great season and great victory last night. They beat the Longhorns pretty easily although without the injury to Colt McCoy the game would have been much different. I’m not sure what would have happened and the outcome may have been the same, but the game would have been different.

Without further ado, here is my final top ten of the season:

1) Boise State (14-0) (prev: 2)
2) Alabama (14-0) (prev: 4)
3) TCU (12-1) (prev: 1)
4) Texas (13-1) (prev: 5)
5) Florida (13-1) (prev: 7)
6) Cincinnati (12-1) (prev: 3)
7) Ohio State (11-2) (prev: 9)
Iowa (11-2) (prev: 10)
9) BYU (11-2) (prev: unranked)
10) Oregon (10-3) (prev: 6)

The more I read about the new Google phone, named Nexus One, the more I wonder why I bother. Sure, it sounds like a nice phone and will be a good competitor to the Droid and maybe the iPhone (although I think the absence of multi-touch would be a big down-side to me), but it is just another smart phone. Yes, it has nice features, maybe advances the art incrementally, but that’s all. It is nothing earth shattering.

The one thing that might be earth shattering, and some are saying it is, is that Google is going to sell them on-line with a contact or unlocked without a contract. Sounds nice although this isn’t that different then what you can already do on Amazon or NewEgg. Still, unlocked phones is a concept I approve of. Only the Google phone, at least in the USA, for all practical purposes isn’t really unlocked. Yes, it might not be software locked, but it is hardware locked. In the USA different carriers use different technologies and/or frequencies which are not compatible. Currently there is only a version that will work on the T-Mobile network. They claim that they will also add a Verizon network friendly version – but still no version that will work on other networks such as AT&T. To me as an end user, it means nothing if a phone is unlocked if it will only work on one network because of hardware limitations. All of this reminds me of the Henry Ford quote, “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”