EZproxy acquired by OCLC

Wow!

http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200690.htm

Comments

[Cloned Milkmen]

I think this means that it is time for an open-source equivalent to ezproxy. In the past there was no point to such an effort because ezproxy was dirt-cheap and the support was good, even though the documentation and architecture of the application were poor. All things considered, the balance in the past was tipped firmly in favour of the application.

However, I think we can expect that the next major version will come with large licensing fees and over time support will slip to mediocre. An open-source version would at least give us good application architecture and affordability (and I suspect better documentation than what exists today).

[disgruntled librarian guy]

I heard the price was going up by a factor of 20!

[Paul R. Pival]

If true that'd certainly be a shame, but wow has this program been an incredible value for such a long time. If it's still available at the current rate (and it appears to be - http://www.usefulutilities.com/purchase/) I'd sure encourage folks to buy now! I hope Chris Z. made enough to retire!

[Steven Moody]

I figured (based on how many schools had the software and art $495 a pop) he had made in excess of a million.

But it was a great product for so cheap, so we all got a good deal for a while (we've had it since 2002 for $495!).