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As stated, DuraSpace does not have the technical staff to do this work alone, nor would we want to. As with any open source development initiative, the commitment and support of the broader community will build a better 'end product', than if one institution were to implement it on their own. We are currently looking for DSpace and Fedora community volunteers to help make this initiative happen.
When will this work begin?
In fact, this work has already begun. This DuraSpace recommendation is just serving to formalize this effort and broaden community interest in the endeavor. Although they've been mentioned elsewhere already, here are several ongoing and past projects which relate to this endeavor:
- DSpace 2.0 prototype work – provided a basis for modularizing DSpace to even support different storage layers (like Fedora)
- GSoC 2008 - Fedora Integration Project - An initial implementation of a Fedora storage layer for DSpace 2.x prototype
- GSoC 2009 - Fedora Integration Project - An improved implementation of a Fedora storage layer for DSpace 2.x prototype
- GSoc 2010 - DSpace 2.x Storage Services to 1.x - A new effort to backport the DSpace 2.x storage layer to 1.x. This may enable one of the above Fedora Integration projects to be utilized with DSpace 1.x.
- AipBackupRestorePrototype - An effort to allow DSpace to export and import AIPs (Archival Information Packages). These AIPs could provide an easier upgrade path from one underlying data model to another.
How can I help? How do I volunteer?
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In the early stages, you may need to perform some basic steps to install or upgrade Fedora whenever you install or upgrade DSpace. However, the Fedora component should never be more difficult to manage than the existing relational database (PostgreSQL) component.
We anticipate that in the future we will be able to simplify this process. The final goal is to be able to install DSpace with "Fedora Inside" without too much effort (i.e. hopefully less than or equal to the effort required to install DSpace 1.6).
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The goal of the DSpace 2 work was primarily to modularize DSpace, and Fedora as one of those modules just makes sense. The DSpace 2 work, along with recent Google Summer of Code projects (in 2008 and 2009), have helped us to more closely realize how DSpace and Fedora could be integrated.