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Rather than going it alone, we consider this shared work to greatly benefit us as for every bit we give, there are 30-odd other universities similarly giving of their time and enhancing Samvera. While we could create a stand-alone system, we'd be doing it ourselves, and the expense of maintaining something custom, over the longrun, would outstrip the occasional costs of Samvera participation. The 90's taught us all a lot of bad habits for localized software development rather than working with others to ensure multiple hands were in play to keep a system going and improving.
- Why are we giving things away? (with regard to community contributions of many kinds, not just code)does the community give away for free all the work they put in to building the system?
If we give we also gain from what others are giving. Giving
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takes on many forms and types - code, metadata development, time. Giving is a form of investment that acknowledge the return
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we expect from others in the community.
- How do we know it will be around in 5 or 10 years?
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