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To reframe analysis of the open source software (OSS) phenomenon from an AQAL perspective

The approach is a review of current research thinking and application of the AQAL framework to suggest resolution of polarizations.

The authors find that AQAL is valuable as an integrating framework allowing a more holistic understanding of the complex economic, social and cultural characteristics of open source communities.

The original value of this paper is to link, within the AQAL framework, current parallel streams of OSS research, the traditional economic and the social and anthropological, by introducing considerations of psychological contract and intrinsic motivation.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The final report of the Butter Regulations Committee has now been published and it is earnestly to be hoped that Regulations based on the Committee's Recommendations will at once be framed and issued by the Board of Agriculture. It will be remembered that in an Interim Report the Committee recommended the adoption of a limit of 16 per cent. for the proportion of water in butter, and that, acting on this recommendation, the Board of Agriculture drew up and issued the “Sale of Butter Regulations, 1902,” under the powers conferred on the Board by Section 4 of the Food Act of 1899. In the present Report the Committee deal with the other matters referred to them, namely, as to what Regulations, if any, might with advantage be made for determining what deficiency in any of the normal constituents of butter, or what addition of extraneous matter other than water, should raise a presumption until the contrary is proved that the butter is not “genuine.” The Committee are to be congratulated on the result of their labours—labours which have obviously been both arduous and lengthy. The questions which have had to be dealt with are intricate and difficult, and they are, moreover, of a highly technical nature. The Committee have evidently worked with the earnest desire to arrive at conclusions which, when applied, would afford as great a measure of protection—as it is possible to give by means of legislative enactments—to the consumer and to the honest producer. The thorough investigation which has been made could result only in the conclusions at which the Committee have arrived, namely, that, in regard to the administration of the Food Acts, (1) an analytical limit should be imposed which limit should determine what degree of deficiency in those constituents which specially characterise butter should raise a presumption that the butter is not “genuine”; (2) that the use of 10 per cent. of a chemically‐recognisable oil in the manufacture of margarine be made compulsory; (3) that steps should be taken to obtain international co‐operation; and finally, that the System of Control, as explained by various witnesses, commends itself to the Committee.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The purpose of this paper is to extensively report the implications of the global trend of declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population. The experiences of childless men are mostly absent from gerontological, psychological, reproduction, and sociological, research. These disciplines have mainly focussed on family formation and practices, whilst the fertility intentions, history, and experience of men have been overlooked. Not fulfilling the dominant social status of parenthood provides a significant challenge to both individual and cultural identity. Distress levels in both infertile men and women have been recorded as high as those with grave medical conditions.

The aim of this paper is to provide some insight into the affect involuntarily childless has on the lives of older men. This auto/biographical qualitative study used a pluralistic framework drawn from the biographical, feminist, gerontological, and life course approaches. Data were gathered from in-depth semi-structured biographical interviews with 14 self-defined involuntary men aged between 49 and 82 years from across the UK. A broad thematic analysis highlighted the complex intersections between involuntary childlessness and agency, biology, relationships, and socio-cultural structures.

Diverse elements affected the men’s involuntary childlessness: upbringing, economics, timing of events, interpersonal skills, sexual orientation, partner selection, relationship formation and dissolution, bereavement, and the assumption of fertility. The importance of relationship quality was highlighted for all the men: with and without partners. Quality of life was affected by health, relationships, and social networks. Awareness of “outsiderness” and a fear of being viewed a paedophile were widely reported.

This is a study based on a small self-selecting “fortuitous” sample. Consequently care should be taken in applying the findings to the wider population.

Health and social care policy, practice and research have tended to focus on family and women. The ageing childless are absent and excluded from policy, practice, and research. Recognition of those ageing without children or family is urgent given that it is predicted that there will be over two million childless people aged 65 and over by 2030 (approximately 25 per cent of the 65 and over population). The consequences for health and social care of individuals and organisations are catastrophic if this does not happen.

The Corporation of the City of London are about to appoint a Public Analyst, and by advertisement have invited applications for the post. It is obviously desirable that the person appointed to this office should not only possess the usual professional qualifications, but that he should be a scientific man of high standing and of good repute, whose name would afford a guarantee of thoroughness and reliability in regard to the work entrusted to him, and whose opinion would carry weight and command respect. Far from being of a nature to attract a man of this stamp, the terms and conditions attaching to the office as set forth in the advertisement above referred to are such that no self‐respecting member of the analytical profession, and most certainly no leading member of it, could possibly accept them. It is simply pitiable that the Corporation of the City of London should offer terms, and make conditions in connection with them, which no scientific analyst could agree to without disgracing himself and degrading his profession. The offer of such terms, in fact, amounts to a gross insult to the whole body of members of that profession, and is excusable only—if excusable at all—on the score of utter ignorance as to the character of the work required to be done, and as to the nature of the qualifications and attainments of the scientific experts who are called upon to do it. In the analytical profession, as in every other profession, there are men who, under the pressure of necessity, are compelled to accept almost any remuneration that they can get, and several of these poorer, and therefore weaker, brethren will, of course, become candidates for the City appointment.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.