I’d like to give a summary of a open discussion that occurred at KohaCon14 in Reno. A spot opened up from a presenter not being able to attend - so I volunteered to lead a discussion on Funding
Salvete! the future of Koha. First we invited all current and past RM’s of Koha up to the front of the room, to educate the audience on some of the “plumbing” needs in the code. When I use the term “plumbing” - I really mean portions of the code that need to be “rewritten”, “updated for current coding practices”, and a “plan for placing newer technologies and practices into the code”. Mainly plumbing = what do we need to get completed in the near future and how are we going to get that done.
Many of these “needs” are larger projects that not a single
organization or library can fund, as we would really need to dedicate an expert programmer some uninterrupted time to accomplish these goals. Not one support vendor can brunt the front of the plumbing needs that need to happen. We need to work together to fund this and we need to have a place and plan going forward "now". Let's do this for Koha!
Points that were raised.
Many attendees felt that a clear
I can't stress this enough. Bust things into the smallest pieces possible and put a price on them with the understanding that the longer things are delayed, the more the price will rise. I think one of the biggest fears can be not knowing how much a rewrite will cost. I would further hope that vendors would factor some rewriting into the quotes they give their clients. I can't see this long term need simply disappearing. I would assume that it's as agitating to vendors as it would be to libraries to have nagging problems. I don't think anyone wants folks to bankrupt themselves short term or long term. So please consider everything in your aestimates. Perhaps a few tiers as in a consortium makes sense; the larger Libraries with means to do so can self identify and help financially, while the smaller ones can give in kind. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but it is very important to remember the relationship between open source development and fun. I think it might be safe to say that rewriting is really not any one's idea of fun. plan on what path Koha should be developing towards would be a useful project. Although setting a ridged path is a difficult thing with a community like ours, maybe a place for everyone to get or stash ideas for future paths would be a good thing to organize.
An important comment here from the attendees was that when someone is funding a development - they should not just fund the code, but also
It doesn't have to be rigid. When I was your age and Paul was release manager the first time, we had a really simply road map. Anyone could put anything on it, and there was a lot of satisfaction as folks signed their names to it and owned each feature or fix. We didn't get everything we wanted by any stretch, but it sure seemed like we got an awful lot. We have the wiki. I know not everyone likes it and it's disorganised, but I still feel like it's friendly enough that even I can do it. As long as folks have an account, they can muck about and make things as they see it. Someplace a long the line, and I tend to blame us Yanks, we lost the spirit of just DOING things, and we transitioned to talking about doing things instead. plan for time and funding for the Sign-Off process and the QA process.
Funding and how would we organize this? Since many in the audience were from the USA - there was discussion of getting a users group going again OR creating some sort of “non-profit like org” where libraries could pool funding towards projects. An organization like this would be able to apply for grants etc. Something where we could crowd-source funding and then fund a developer for a number of hours towards a
This should be factored in to a vendor's quote. Sign offs are usually not fun, but bugfixing days, chorewars, and scoreboards changed this a little! :D (One of many great ideas. :D) I stand by my previous assertion that mechanical turking out sign offsand sandboxing could be a good thing. We could at least try it for very low cost, but it would require pretty bad arse sandboxing. I'm also olde enough to remember a time pre sandbox. :D So yes, we are definitely making forward progress even if it doesn't seem like it to those in the thick of the fight! project.
Users' groups pre date things like Kickstarter. Individual Libraries are still free to explore grants without building a whole new umbrella organisation. That said, a proper non profit foundation is still highly attractive to me despite the endless hoops and pitfalls. I feel like it would be a safe place for IP, a good bank for good purposes that Libraries couldn't support - like travel to Conference for folks outside their walls. (Thankfully this is starting to happen *anyway* but it could be quicker.)
My thoughts on some things that we can do in the USA.
Have
Gauge the interest of a North American Koha users group so at least we are having more of the community meeting together and sharing practices and ideas. Comments from Galen "As far as a US or North American user group goes: I
a hackfest in Athen’s Ohio next summer. Next year will be 10 years since Koha migrated to the US and I think it’s about time we have a hackfest here. I have briefly talked with Owen Leonard about putting this together for next summer and would love for help and encourage those from overseas to join us. (Also a commitment here that we will be sending a few employees to the France Hackfest in March and will continue to do this every year that we can - that also being right around a feature freeze for releases it's important to have a solid week dedicated to hacking koha only) think a relaunch should start off with just the goal of hosting a US/NA conference, as it would /not/ be necessary to set up a nonprofit first to run conferences. We'd just need willing hosts and, if necessary, a firm willing and able to act as a fiscal agent. That's not to say that such a group couldn't pursue nonprofit status later, but we can get a lot of education and user-connecting done without ever having to have a formal organization."
I put in a bid for Conference this go round. I'd gladly do so again in an off election year. I'd still be willing to host. So if Owen's too busy, lemme know. :D I think Winter might be a better time for me and less likely to conflict with ALA annual. (Screw Midwinter.) Dunno if there's a method to picking summer, though. Just sayin: summer in Ohio, prolly decent rates balmy temperatures. Summer in DC, not so much. Rumour has it that summer in Montana might be nice. ;) Cheers, Brooke