Fedora and DSpace collaboration

A press release hit the streets today about a formal collaboration between the Fedora Commons and the DSpace Federation. Excerpt from the press release:

The decision to collaborate came out of meetings held this spring where members of DSpace and Fedora Commons communities discussed multiple dimensions of cooperation and collaboration between the two organizations. Ideas included leveraging the power and reach of open source knowledge communities by using the same services and standards in the future. The organizations will also explore opportunities to provide new capabilities for accessing and preserving digital content, developing common web services, and enabling interoperability across repositories.

In the spirit of advancing open source software, Fedora Commons and DSpace will look at ways to leverage and incubate ideas, community and culture to:

1. Provide the best technology and services to open source repository framework communities.

2. Evaluate and synchronize, where possible, both organizations'technology roadmaps to enable convergence and interoperability of key architectural components.

3. Demonstrate how the DSpace and Fedora open source repository frameworks offer a unique value proposition compared to proprietary solutions.

The announcement came on the heels of an event sponsored by the Joint Information Systems Committee's (JISC) Common Repository Interface Group (CRIG) held at the Library of Congress. The event, known as "RepoCamp," was a forum where developers gathered to discuss innovative approaches to improving interoperability and web-orientation for digital repositories. Sandy Payette, Executive Director of Fedora Commons, and Michele Kimpton, Executive Director of the DSpace Foundation, reiterated their commitment to collaboration and encouraged input and participation from both communities as work gets underway.

The full press release is available. Theres a great photo of Sandy and Michelle in a ceremonial handshake at LoC. Sandy and Michelle led a brief discussion about this last Friday at RepoCamp, and was exciting to watch this initiative launch.