Reply inline: 1. CLARIFICATION OF A GRADUATED REMEDY. On Fri, October 9, 2009 02:13, Chris Cormack wrote: [...]
I agree with Nicole, (and Owen and Chris N) It is inappropriate to link to a version of Koha that has not been released and isn't representative of what people can download and install.
I think that my subsequent posts clarified the fact that I agree that linking to non-free software based on Koha from the community website is wrong and confusing as Nicole Engard had explained. We should be especially concerned about the confusion from prospective users of free software who may not recognise that LEK is non-free despite being promoted as open source. People may presume that the source code to LEK is available and blame Koha when they later discover that it is not. I had offered an alternative view from others about how to correct the problem. I preferred that we proceed a little more patiently by asking LibLime to make the source code for LEK available first. I had suggested that we should not first ask LibLime to remove their demonstration link from the main Koha website to a LibLime page which links to LEK demonstrations from the top of the page. I had suggested asking that the link be relabelled for the moment, until the Koha community can offer a real alternative of something such as what Kyle Hall had suggested in other website possibilities. I had made an even stronger suggestion than Kyle's much more subtly. The prospect of a real alternative would give LibLime an additional reason to reconsider their position. I chose to be extremely subtle because acting confrontational even with extraordinary justification has certainly not produced helpful responses from LibLime. I still hope that LibLime will find a way back to the participating in the Koha community on terms which work for them as I have hoped they would consider in extensive private suggestions to them. 1.1. MY REQUEST OF LIBLIME. I certainly ask LibLime to either provide the source code to LibLime Enterprise Koha; redirect LibLime demonstration links on koha.org only directly to Koha demonstrations for which the source code is available and not to LibLime pages linking on to demonstrations which are not free software; or at the very least, while considering their position at the moment, label the LibLime demonstration links from koha.org to the LibLime demonstrations page with LibLime Enterprise Koha demonstrations in some appropriate manner which distinguishes the link as leading to the currently non-free LibLime software based on Koha. In all cases, LibLime should provide the opportunity for others to add more prominent links to advertising free demonstrations of Koha in some suitable subdomains of koha.org; links to demonstrations on other non-profit Koha community websites such as http://demo.koha-fr.org/ and http://opacdemo.koha-fr.org/ ; and should prepare to have any Koha demonstrations of their own which they would want linked from koha.org available in a similar advertising free manner from some koha.org subdomains or other non-profit Koha community website. Ignoring a request to at least meet some intersection of those options should be understood as breach of faith with current and prospective Koha users. 1.2. PROCEEDING OTHERWISE. Apparently, others have less patience for a graduated path to resolution. Everyone is free to make the request of LibLime. I changed the subject from graduated problem solving where I found little agreement to being prepared with strength to act as a unified community via the one or the other of the immediate foundation forming choices which are only HLT and SPI for an intermediate period as I see it. I gave my reasons including why I favour the flexibility of HLT and several people have offered similar reasons. 2. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING VIA KOHA.ORG GENERALLY IS WRONG.
I don't
[understand how]
the advertising part of it is an issue at all, apart from the fact that it is advertisting something that isn't Koha.
I think that we started on the path which would eventually lead to LibLime linking from the community website to a LibLime page with a non-free demonstrations by not earlier complaining that subtle advertising in the demonstrations linked from the main website is not appropriate for a community demonstration. The demonstrations should have always been completely neutral and linked within the koha.org domain as they are at the French Koha website's demonstrations, http://demo.koha-fr.org/ and http://opacdemo.koha-fr.org/ . I find myself complicit in the history of this problem because apparently subtle advertising in the demonstrations has bothered me more than some other English language people involved in the Koha community. I justified to myself not raising any objection because initially the subtle advertising seemed to me to be the least reward when LibLime had been first having a difficult time obtaining enough customers for a sustainable business in the US. I was not paying much attention to the Koha community at the time when LibLime was having a much easier time obtaining customers. There are obviously many other and some more important factors in the history. However, I think that a community demonstration of the software should be just that, a community demonstration of the software, and we should not make the same mistake again of allowing subtle advertising irrespective of who actually maintains a community demonstration. There should be an appropriate central place where everyone can given appropriate credit for their contributions in a manner which does not constitute advertising. A fairly reconstituted pay for support page is an appropriate place for a little reasonable commercial advertising in addition to some informative news announcements which are in part advertising but come and go. Outside of such circumscribed areas, commercial advertising is misplaced on koha.org and I contend has been a significant element of our current trouble. Non-commercial community advertising should not pose the same problem. As Nicole identified in a recent post, the main Koha website should be understood as a website for all languages. That should not stop other people from having their own community websites in any language. The main community website has not linked properly to the French community website since the switch to the Kea content management system in 2005. There are some details about a mistake with the link to http://www.koha-fr.org which I shall overlook. However, in addition to having content in various languages, and linking to other community websites, the main Koha website should be linking to community demonstrations of the software in various languages just as Nicole said. [...] Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783