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Open-source electronic discovery products, which appeared on the market in 2011, are quickly expanding in the new year.
There is an evolving system for email archiving and searching, along with a cloud-based processing engine, both of which are on the cusp of large scalability, allowing them to handle growing workloads.
Linux Box, in Ann Arbor, Mich., focused last year on its archiving application, called Enkive, which was built atop the popular Alfresco content management system. But that didn't scale well and was not easy to install, CEO Elizabeth Ziph explained. A new version of Enkive, due in February, instead runs on the MongoDB database and Indri search engine, which together run faster and are simpler to administer than the previous approach, she said.
"At this stage it is fairly simple. What we basically allow people to do is take a look at all their emails that they have archived by the basic header information ... we also allow people to look in the attachments," Ziph said.
The system has features such as saved searches, for repeating actions and processes, and audit logs, which let administrators see who has accessed the files. It can split large files for quick searching and can deduplicate redundant messages and attachments.
Another company, Stimulus Software, released its own open-source archiving and email discovery product, called MailArchiva, in 2005. However, that product is not popular in the legal market. Stimulus has a closed-source version that is better-adopted by legal departments, developer Jamie Band noted.
On the processing side, SHMsoft's FreeEed project is now in its third generation. Previous versions could be clustered -- the concept of sharing large projects across many servers, resulting in faster jobs and better reliability -- by using the Hadoop system when hosted locally. But now there is a version called EC2Eed running atop the Amazon EC2 cloud, which will get clustering in two months, project leader Mark Kerzner said.
SHMsoft has also hired its first business development manager to help the project grow beyond word-of-mouth, Kerzner said.
Still, any open-source proponent faces a chicken-and-egg dilemma in the traditionally slow-changing legal technology field -- the vendors need corporate adoption in order to gain traction, but few legal departments or law firms are willing to be the first mover, 451 Group analyst David Horrigan observed.
"Someone's got to take the plunge," Horrigan added, in Boston. "Invariably, as always, someone will. Because it's a huge potential market."
Evan Koblentz is a reporter for Law Technology News. Send e-mail.
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Nancy Zukowski
This article really caught my attention. I provide paralegal services on an as needed basis to help law firms cut costs. For indepenent paralegals like me Open Source e-discovery software is the greatest thing since Open Office. The availbility of these free products will make it easier for me to work from my home and provide value to my clients. I can't wait to try these products.
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