2009/5/9 Joshua Ferraro <jmf@liblime.com>:
3.2 PAY FOR SUPPORT
Support companies are listed by the date they joined the Koha community.
I really don't want to remove any credits to LibLime or BibLibre. You guys are doing awesome job. However, I'm a bit confused about the contribution part.
As far as I can tell, a contribution should be something that the company as paid or provide the ressource to do something. Features developped for and paid by a client shouldn't be considered as a contribution.
Has contributed over 55% of the entire Koha codebase, including the integration of Koha and Zebra Has contributed over 35% of the entire Koha codebase Was the developpment payed by a client? If so, the client should be credited for the integrations/development, not LibLime... does it make sense?
Well, I can't speak for BibLibre, but LibLime does not get paid by clients to contribute back to the Koha community. We don't get paid to maintain those contributions. We don't get paid by clients to write and maintain the free documentation we've maintained for the community, and we don't get paid by clients to hold time-consuming official Koha positions such as Release Manager, Translation Manager and Documentation Manager. LibLime pays those expenses ourselves at considerable cost to us.
Many of the Koha vendors listed on the support page do not contribute 100% of the code they write for customers to the community, and we've learned over the past fwew years that in some cases this is due to them not being paid for that effort, and in other cases, its a deliberate attempt to proprietize components of the services they offer.
LibLime has, from our inception in 2005, contributed back 100% of the code we've created because we believe in the community process and we strive to set an example for other support organizations.
Listing notable contributions by vendors on the support page where applicable is additional incentive for vendors to get more actively involved in contribution. Its important that libraries selecting support options know the roles that their support provider is playing in the community.
I'm not going to answer this until I have calmed down enough to not go into flame mode. I do find it highly insulting to the rest of the community who are not liblime though.
In March 2007, LibLime acquired the Koha division of Katipo Communications, Ltd., the original developers of Koha 1.0. Not really a contribution... This is marketing stuff and shoud stay on LibLime website.
That is not meant to be a marketing statement, but rather an explanation of LibLime's listing having been grandfathered from Katipo's Koha Division, which could be confusing to first-time visitors.
Maybe then in that case in order to no confuse first time visitors you need to put that the three people hired in that grandfathering have all since left liblime.
the koha-manage group decided to...
What are the factor making for someone to be in the Koha-manage group? There is no mention of such a group on koha.org.
My main point here is that the Koha.org website should be as vendor-independant as possible. I really think that the Alphabetical order is the best way to reach that goal.
I respectfully disagree. Listing by date joined is the most vendor-independent and community-focused. Another fair option would be to list in order of contributions, most to least. This community is, after all, a meritocracy :).
The community is what the community decides it should be. Chris