Beta release 1.0.9 announcement
Discussion list post with the latest update on development status.
The ICA-AtoM Project and Technology
Peter Van Garderen's paper presented to the Archives Association of Brazil. It tells the full story of the project's origins and technical design.
About the ICA-AtoM Project
A. Project Purpose
The purpose of the ICA-AtoM Project is to provide free and open-source software:- that enables institutions to make their archival holdings available online, especially those who could not otherwise afford to do so
- that manages archival descriptions in accord with ICA standards
- that provides multi-lingual interfaces and content translation features
- that supports multiple collection types
- that is fully web-based, user-friendly and follows accessibility best practices
- that is flexible and customizable
- that is useful to both small and large institutions alike
- that supports single or multi-repository implementations
B. Project Values
The values of the ICA-AtoM Project are to conduct its affairs in the spirit of open-source collaboration, including:- openly sharing technical expertise
- promoting professional best practices
- nurturing an active community of users and developers
- leveraging existing open web technology to deliver best-of-breed archives software
- providing solutions to organizations with limited financial and technical resources
- engaging active participation from organizations that have the necessary financial and technical resources
- providing a common ground for cross-discipline collaboration with related communities
- generating revenue to support ICA-AtoM and other ICA activities through a business model that benefits from widespread ICA-AtoM adoption
C. Governance Model
Users and developers of ICA-AtoM sofware are free to use it as they see fit under the open terms of the GPL v.2 license. However, the formal objectives and activities of the ICA-AtoM Project will be established by the ICA-AtoM Steering Committee. The ICA-AtoM Steering Committee reports regularly to the ICA Executive Board.The members of the ICA-AtoM Steering Committee are:
- David Leitch: ICA Secretary-General; Chair, ICA-AtoM Steering Committee
- Rob Mildren, Head of Information and Communication Technology, National Archives of Scotland
- Peter Horsman: Research Group Archives and Information Studies, University of Amsterdam
- Abdullah Al Reyes: Director, United Arab Emirates Center for Documentation & Research; Vice-President for Marketing and Promotion of ICA
- Zahra Pourjafar-Ziaei: Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Information Technology Branch, Library and Archives of Canada
- Claire Sibille: Departement departement de l'innovation technologique et de la normalisation, Direction des Archives de France; Secretary, ICA Committee of Best Practices and Standards
- Jens Boel: Chief Archivist, UNESCO; Chair ICA Section on International Organisations
- Ineke Deserno: PhD Candidate, Monash University; Member, ICA Program Commission (PCOM)
- Perrine Canavaggio: Deputy Secretary-General, ICA; ICA-AtoM Communications & Marketing Manager
- Annick Carteret: Office Manager, ICA Secretariat; ICA-AtoM Finance & Legal Manager
As the ICA Secretrary-General and chair of the ICA-AtoM Steering Committee, David Leitch provides executive direction for the project while Artefactual Systems is currently the primary contractor, managing the day-to-day software development and user community support. Rob Mildren is the technical liaison between the ICA-AtoM Steering Committee and Artefactual Systems.
The ICA-AtoM management team consists of:
| Chair, ICA-AtoM Steering Committee | David Leitch, ICA Secretary-General |
| Finance and Legal Manager | Annick Carteret, ICA Secretariat |
| Communications and Marketing Manager | Perrine Canavaggio, ICA Deputy Secretary-General |
| Technical Liaison | Rob Mildren, Head of Information and Communication Technology, National Archives of Scotland |
| Software Release Manager | Peter Van Garderen, Artefactual Systems |
| User Support and Training Manager | Evelyn McLellan, Artefactual Systems |
D. Software License
The ICA-AtoM software is released under the GPL v.2 license. It consists of a number of GPL v.2 compatible libraries, predominately the Qubit Toolkit and the symfony web application framework. Due to the large number of contributors from these and other software libraries, it is not possible to assign copyright to a single person or organization. Therefore, copyright of all the software code used within ICA-AtoM remains with the original authors.However, all the code used in the ICA-AtoM software is strictly verified for compliance with the GPL v.2 license, thereby making the entire distribution freely useable to any and all parties under the terms of the GPL v.2 license. This includes the ability to make changes to the source code and to redistribute free versions of the software. One can also charge a fee for copying, modifying and redistributing the software and any other related services as long as the software code itself and any modifications or derivative works created from it remain free and publicly accessible under the same GPL v.2 license.