Library management systems are one of the problem domains where I don't understand why libre open-source software hasn't dominated the market. Most small library management systems are rubbish and can barely do stemming correctly. On the other hand we have systems like http://lucene.apache.org/ which is a state-of-the art text search engine capable of any kind of text indexing you could imagine.
One of the cool library projects to come out of New Zealand is Koha. Originally commissioned 10 years ago by the Horowhenua Library Trust as open-source software, one vendor, LibLime, acquired the copyright to the software from it's original developer. After a bungled mess from attempts to develop code a closed-source fork of the code, resulting in the community moving to http://www.koha-community.org/ (under management of the Horowhenua Library Trust), LibLime was acquired by yet another library management system vendor and then proceeded to file trademarks on the term Koha in the US and New Zealand.
What a mess.
One of the cool library projects to come out of New Zealand is Koha. Originally commissioned 10 years ago by the Horowhenua Library Trust as open-source software, one vendor, LibLime, acquired the copyright to the software from it's original developer. After a bungled mess from attempts to develop code a closed-source fork of the code, resulting in the community moving to http://www.koha-community.org/ (under management of the Horowhenua Library Trust), LibLime was acquired by yet another library management system vendor and then proceeded to file trademarks on the term Koha in the US and New Zealand.
What a mess.