I'd like to chime in here before things get too hot. The Koha community is one where developers and user have been able to talk and work together, and that has been one of the keys to making things work. Both MJR and Ed have good points, which we should all try to remember. We don't need to get into a running battle here though. LC is an important feature for Koha, and one that we'll be working on for 2.2. Developers working on Koha need to make a living -- the more money they get for working on Koha, the more work they *can* do on Koha. Unless someone wants to either pitch in and help pay for LC (or some other feature they'd like), or contribute to getting the work done through some other means (see my previous email), why don't we get back to the business of making Koha (the community and the software) really shine. thanks, -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager migrant Linux sys admin the Koha project ruby, shell, and perl geek http://www.koha.org http://pate.eylerfamily.org On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 COURYHOUSE@aol.com wrote:
you said: "unhelpful "we're not using koha" reply to a survey, cc'd to the developers (to annoy them?"
Our reply: I believe we hit reply all on the mail page... whatever addresses were in there of course were cc'ed! Why did we reply to the survey we were not using it (yet)? Please study it... We, as well as others that exist in the academic, scientific and technical community use the library of congress numbers rather than Dewey to catalog our books in.
Let us digress back into history further ... this was a feature that had been requested ages ago, most probably before you came on board and had slipped though the cracks. Both the LC and Dewey information is present in the MARC record, and at the expense of sounding harsh, if you do not know what a library of congress cataloging number is, and you are doing programming work on this project, perhaps you should study up on it a bit.
You mentioned.... "links to other projects"
I believe what you are referring to was he DYNIX Link... If you are not familiar with DYNIX you need to be. It is a very expensive product with many interesting features. If you carefully read the message that included the DYNIX link it was to offer a look at the other part of the world you are personally attempting to involve yourself in. Only by examining all of the product offerings that are out there will you understand what the state of the art is. This state of the art is what others that are looking at library automation systems look at also. As I had previously stated.... it is always a goal to meet or exceed what exists already... and HEY!( yep this one was a shout) if you don;t study it you will continue along in a direction that you think is reality but the rest of the world is examining he entire picture, not just what you are working on...
Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC On 2003-12-23 02:04:53 +0000 ed sharpe <esharpe@uswest.net> wrote:
perhaps we could also hope that there are some programmers on this project for purely altruistic reasons and not trying to milk $$ from each line of code.... sometimes things need to get done just for the pure reason they need to get done....
I am quite uphappy about this email. I may as well write that "we could also hope that there are some librarians who work for purely altruistic reasons and not trying to milk $$ from each collection". We all know that programmers need money to live, just like librarians, so why be so hostile to the idea?
Library free software interests me. There are some libraries which are real assets to their communities and could benefit from it, but I have no grant funding any more. I have to make money to live and koha-based projects are part of that. There is a lot of koha work that I do for free, including things that "need to get done" but no-one will pay for. I cannot afford to help everyone for free, so I pick a few things at a time which look like fun, good ideas and worthwhile. I hope that someone appreciates it, even if you don't.
The paid work is on top of that, extra to the time that I would spend on koha anyway. If we've no paid work on koha, that time gets filled with other paid work because it has to be. Payment brings extra programmer time to koha. (Don't worry about my email writing: I type very quickly.) Those priorities are determined by what the payer wants, so if your idea doesn't get worked on for free and it's important to you, consider trying it commercially.
Maybe smecc can't afford to do that. I can't find details about staff or funding on its web site. Off the top of my head, I can't recall what they contributed or offered to koha. A quick search for smecc on the lists gives the LoC request many times, including some BLOCK CAPS SHOUTING, links to other projects, and an unhelpful "we're not using koha" reply to a survey, cc'd to the developers (to annoy them?). I think people wanting free help need to be more open about their institution and reasons, and nicer to potential helpers. I suspect it will be the same with any of Pat's suggested groups. No-one donates to people who offend them, even a charity.
(remember folks to make it print out the library of congress catalog number instead of the Dewey number it is just one field you are dealing with! )
I don't know/remember what's required for this. I probably won't do it unless I need it, because I've other things to do and it now makes me think of this unhappy exchange. I think you should reconsider your methods of motivating people. Maybe you can find out what has to be done and record it on bug report 498.
-- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha