eprints_tech messages

From: Joseph Yamada <Joseph.Yamada AT oicr.on.ca>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 16:21:52 -0400

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/


Hello,

We're getting started with Eprints, and we've recently installed Eprints v ↵
3.1.2 onto  Linux (Debian) dweb 2.6.18-6-amd64 #1 SMP Sun Feb 10 17:50:19 UTC ↵
2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux.

Our problem occurs when we enable GDome through ↵
perl_lib/Eprints/SystemSettings.pm (enable_gdome = >1).  On Apache startup, ↵
we are seeing a Segmentation fault.

We have followed the instructions for ↵
http://wiki.eprints.org/w/Installing_GDOME_on_Debian, but this has not helped. ↵
And we are assuming the instructions were meant for another version of Eprints.

Can someone help explain to us what we stand to lose by not enabling Gdome?

Has anyone been successful to install Eprints 3.1.2 on Debian, if yes, can you ↵
please identify the version of Eprints htat you had success with, and/or help ↵
us solve this problem?

Thank-you in advance for your support,

Joseph.

ATTACHMENT: message.html!

From: Ben Wheeler <b.wheeler AT ulcc.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:45:42 +0000

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
On Mon, Mar 09, 2009 at 04:21:52PM -0400, Joseph Yamada wrote:
> Our problem occurs when we enable GDome through ↵
perl_lib/Eprints/SystemSettings.pm (enable_gdome = >1).  On Apache startup, ↵
we are seeing a Segmentation fault.
> 
> We have followed the instructions for ↵
http://wiki.eprints.org/w/Installing_GDOME_on_Debian, but this has not helped. ↵
And we are assuming the instructions were meant for another version of Eprints.
> 
> Can someone help explain to us what we stand to lose by not enabling ↵
Gdome?

If you don't want to use gdome, you should enable libxml instead. 
If neither of these are enabled it falls back to XML::DOM which makes
EPrints extremely slow and memory-leaky.

libxml works fine for us, excepting the fact that it seems the EPrints
developers use gdome so occasionally something doesn't quite work properly
or works differently on a libxml setup until they fix it ;)

gdome is reportedly a bit faster than libxml, but it's also completely
abandoned by the authors and has been for several years, so it doesn't 
seem like a great thing to depend your repository on....

Ben

From: "Minh Thu" <minh-thu.nguyen AT polymtl.ca>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:55:46 -0400

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
Hi all,

We are in a situation where department staff deposit all theses, not
students. We do ask students not to password lock their files, however we
are going to ask staff to lock these files (by the same password).

What are your thoughts as to whether we should lock PDF documents or not to
prevent modifications & copy ?

Thanks.
Minh-Thu

From: Tim Brody <tdb2 AT ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:02:23 +0000

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 15:55 -0400, Minh Thu wrote:
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
> *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
> Hi all,
> 
> We are in a situation where department staff deposit all theses, not
> students. We do ask students not to password lock their files, however we
> are going to ask staff to lock these files (by the same password).
> 
> What are your thoughts as to whether we should lock PDF documents or not ↵
to
> prevent modifications & copy ?

I would argue against adding security settings to PDFs for the following
reasons:
 - It doesn't protect you against determined abuse i.e. any
password-protected file can be cracked with the appropriate tools
 - It will prevent the PDF being indexed by EPrints and other search
engines
 - It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g. quotation)
 - It prevents meta-analysis
 - It hinders plagiarism detection
 - It hinders digital preservation

(+ all the other potential interesting uses that no one has thought of
yet)

All the best,
Tim.

From: "Delasalle, Jenny" <J.Delasalle AT warwick.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:28:25 -0000

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
All very good reasons for not locking pdf files... Tim, do you mind if I
copy your summary to the jiscmail UKCORR-discussion list? I think it
would be good to share this with other repository managers, and also for
us to discuss how we handle concerns about plagiarism of the works made
available through repositories.

Kind regards

Jen

Jenny Delasalle
E-Repositories Manager
Research & Innovation Unit
University of Warwick Library
Gibbet Hill Road
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom
Tel: (+44) (0) 24 765 75793
http://go.warwick.ac.uk/repositories

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: eprints-tech-bounces AT ecs.soton.ac.uk 
> [mailto:eprints-tech-bounces AT ecs.soton.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tim Brody
> Sent: 11 March 2009 11:02
> To: eprints-tech AT ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Subject: [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ?
> 
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
> *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/ On Tue, 
> 2009-03-10 at 15:55 -0400, Minh Thu wrote:
> > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
> > *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/ Hi all,
> > 
> > We are in a situation where department staff deposit all 
> theses, not 
> > students. We do ask students not to password lock their 
> files, however 
> > we are going to ask staff to lock these files (by the same 
> password).
> > 
> > What are your thoughts as to whether we should lock PDF 
> documents or 
> > not to prevent modifications & copy ?
> 
> I would argue against adding security settings to PDFs for 
> the following
> reasons:
>  - It doesn't protect you against determined abuse i.e. any 
> password-protected file can be cracked with the appropriate tools
>  - It will prevent the PDF being indexed by EPrints and other 
> search engines
>  - It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g. quotation)
>  - It prevents meta-analysis
>  - It hinders plagiarism detection
>  - It hinders digital preservation
> 
> (+ all the other potential interesting uses that no one has thought of
> yet)
> 
> All the best,
> Tim.
> 
> 

From: "Minh Thu" <minh-thu.nguyen AT polymtl.ca>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:47:26 -0400

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
Hello Tim,

Thanks for your answer. I was really talking about password protect the
files for modification/copy, not for it's opening. Do you think all of the
problems you quoted prevail ? 

I can certainly see that "It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g.
quotation)" because of the copy protection (which can be lifted
independently), but I would like to understand more about indexing, meta
analysis, plagiarism detection and digital preservation, could you elaborate
them for me ? 

For sure, I can see that while we can think about protecting theses &
dissertations, we cannot dream of doing the same for articles which are
freely deposited by their authors, so maybe it is not justified anyway.

Thanks.

Minh-Thu


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Tim Brody [mailto:tdb2 AT ecs.soton.ac.uk] 
Envoyé : 11 03 2009 07:02
À : eprints-tech AT ecs.soton.ac.uk
Objet : [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ?

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 15:55 -0400, Minh Thu wrote:
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
> *** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
> Hi all,
> 
> We are in a situation where department staff deposit all theses, not
> students. We do ask students not to password lock their files, however we
> are going to ask staff to lock these files (by the same password).
> 
> What are your thoughts as to whether we should lock PDF documents or not
to
> prevent modifications & copy ?

I would argue against adding security settings to PDFs for the following
reasons:
 - It doesn't protect you against determined abuse i.e. any
password-protected file can be cracked with the appropriate tools
 - It will prevent the PDF being indexed by EPrints and other search
engines
 - It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g. quotation)
 - It prevents meta-analysis
 - It hinders plagiarism detection
 - It hinders digital preservation

(+ all the other potential interesting uses that no one has thought of
yet)

All the best,
Tim.

From: Ben Wheeler <b.wheeler AT ulcc.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:45:24 +0000

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 09:47:26AM -0400, Minh Thu wrote:
> I can certainly see that "It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g.
> quotation)" because of the copy protection (which can be lifted
> independently), but I would like to understand more about indexing, meta
> analysis, plagiarism detection and digital preservation, could you ↵
elaborate
> them for me ? 

I can chip in on the Digital Preservation point. Preservation requires the
ability to migrate content to new formats as old ones become obsolete. This
can be significantly more difficult if they are password locked or encrypted.
The long-term preservation requirements for your content may outlast any 
record of the password used to lock it.

The idea that by locking up your content you are "protecting" it, ↵
strikes
me as "old world" thinking. Experience in digital preservation shows ↵
that
the more that content is encumbered with technological, legal or physical
restrictions, the more likely it is to become inaccessible and lost forever 
within 10-20 years.

"New world" thinking is that the best way to ensure that content is 
protected, is to ensure its survival, and that means to keep it free
from encumbrances, so that everyone is free to copy it, quote it, index it, 
migrate it to different formats, and reuse it in ways you never even 
dreamed of. That makes sure that you get lots of copies, not just verbatim
copies of a PDF which will all have exactly the same preservation problems,
but a diverse array of partial or complete copies of the *content* in 
different forms. 

It's a change of paradigm away from the concept of exploiting 
"intellectual property" by locking it away, towards building
reputation and collaboration by allowing a much freer spread of ideas.

Ben

From: "Minh Thu" <minh-thu.nguyen AT polymtl.ca>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:48:53 -0400

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
Hello Ben,
Judging by my age, this "old world" thinking sounds appropriate ;-))
Thanks for sharing your thoughts ! I value them.
Minh-Thu


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Ben Wheeler [mailto:b.wheeler AT ulcc.ac.uk] 
Envoyé : 11 03 2009 10:45
À : eprints-tech AT ecs.soton.ac.uk
Objet : [EP-tech] Re: Thesis : Locking PDF files or not ?

http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/eprints-tech
*** EPrints community wiki - http://wiki.eprints.org/
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 09:47:26AM -0400, Minh Thu wrote:
> I can certainly see that "It prevents legitimate scholarly use (e.g.
> quotation)" because of the copy protection (which can be lifted
> independently), but I would like to understand more about indexing, meta
> analysis, plagiarism detection and digital preservation, could you
elaborate
> them for me ? 

I can chip in on the Digital Preservation point. Preservation requires the
ability to migrate content to new formats as old ones become obsolete. This
can be significantly more difficult if they are password locked or
encrypted.
The long-term preservation requirements for your content may outlast any 
record of the password used to lock it.

The idea that by locking up your content you are "protecting" it, ↵
strikes
me as "old world" thinking. Experience in digital preservation shows ↵
that
the more that content is encumbered with technological, legal or physical
restrictions, the more likely it is to become inaccessible and lost forever 
within 10-20 years.

"New world" thinking is that the best way to ensure that content is 
protected, is to ensure its survival, and that means to keep it free
from encumbrances, so that everyone is free to copy it, quote it, index it, 
migrate it to different formats, and reuse it in ways you never even 
dreamed of. That makes sure that you get lots of copies, not just verbatim
copies of a PDF which will all have exactly the same preservation problems,
but a diverse array of partial or complete copies of the *content* in 
different forms. 

It's a change of paradigm away from the concept of exploiting 
"intellectual property" by locking it away, towards building
reputation and collaboration by allowing a much freer spread of ideas.

Ben