Oh and Thomas Krichel has been able to sum it up very succinctly: "we can also entrust koha to an existing organization, such as the Horowhenua Library Trust." J. On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Thomas Krichel <krichel@openlib.org> wrote:

DeGroff, Amy writes

...

PTFS realizes a compromise is the only way to go here – we need to get all of these great minds and talents working together to form a foundation.

No, we can also entrust koha to an existing organization, such as the Horowhenua Library Trust.

Cheers,

Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorclaim.org/profile/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

-- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust. *Q: Why is this email three sentences or less? A: http://three.sentenc.es*

1. MEMBERSHIP OF A FREE SOFTWARE PROJECT FOUNDATION. 1.1. PURPOSE OF FREE SOFTWARE. Free software is about user freedom. The members of software support companies, however important they may be to a free software project are not a better class of users. Free software ensures that every user has the right to act as a developer and cannot be subservient to other developers who came previously. 1.2. ROLE OF MERIT. Free software communities can certainly function to some degree on merit. However, defering to some people over their merit in some domain such as development is very different from deferring to the same people over another issue such as community organisation. As others have stated, merit is significantly attached to individuals. Companies may have collective merit in some domains but merit is something which cannot be bought and sold. 1.3. OTHER MODELS. There are certainly software community organisations set up by companies in which one company is the originator and almost the sole developer of the software. Such companies are often pursuing a non-free development model in addition to the free software model. Ensuring a very significant level of representation for a company or set of companies in a free software organisation employs a free software organisation for some purpose other than user freedom. An organisation dominated by those associated with any particular company or set of companies should not be trusted to serve the best interests of the users. 1.4. BALANCE OF INTERESTS. Users are well aware that they need software support companies. Those attempting to safeguard software company interests need not fear user control of community organisations. 1.5. RULES TO PROTECT USER'S INTERESTS. Without carefully considered safeguards, organisations call all too easily become captured by particular business interests. For the time being, the Koha community has voted to organise itself as a committee of the Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) in a large vote open to everyone in the Koha community. Just as the GPL has terms restricting software developers to protect user freedom in the software, the HLT Koha Committee has rules restricting committee membership from being dominated by an particular business interests which protects all user's interests in the community. The rules are posted at http://koha-community.org/koha-project-organization/horowhenua-library-trust... . There are common rules for the members of the committee about adequate notice of meetings, what constitutes a quorum, and exclusions for conflict of interest. Clause 5, rule 2 protects the small number of committee members, seven maximum members, from being captured by a particular business interest. "No more than 30 per cent of Members (rounded down) may be appointed who have a material financial interest in or are employees of the same organisation or whose organisations have a supplier / customer relationship. If at any time a breach of this clause is identified, the relevant Member last appointed shall resign." A 30 percent restriction allows two of the seven members to be associated with the same company. It prevents the committee from being captured by members associated with a single company aligning with only one other committee member. The smaller the number of members needed for conducting business, the greater the need for such a rule. I believe that most of us look forward to the prospect of a fully independent Koha foundation. However, I think that few of us look forward to the lengthy discussion about bylaws which will be needed to ensure that such a foundation remains truly independent. 2. WAY FORWARD. We should be discussing the points on which we can agree with PTFS as PTFS are members of the Koha community with interests common to all members of the community. Until we concentrate our attention and our approach to organisation around what we share in common, we will continue to have unnecessary strife. Criticisms of particular ill advised actions taken by some certainly have a necessary place to remind people of the good expectations which we all have of each others' behaviour. However, we have to be able to set aside some differences to have a productive discussion. Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Paul Poulain wrote:

Le 15/10/2010 02:45, DeGroff, Amy a ?crit :

...

Thanks to MJ Ray for starting this conversation.

PTFS realizes a compromise is the only way to go here ? we need to get all of these great minds and talents working together to form a foundation.

Please, everybody else, chime in.

OK, I chime in then, (will repeat & rewrite what I just sent a few minuts ago, but I didn't saw this thread before)

the main question here, according to me, is: which rule is important? Definetly, the main (only ?) rule that should gouvern us is MERIT, not assets !

Sorry Amy, but in Free Software, assets is something useless (and, to speak frankly, if you (you=ptfs) think you've bought something worth when acquiring "koha assets", you made a mistake. The only value you've bought is customers & contracts)

Paul, If assets are worthless, why do you want the domain name that they have? I think it would be very reasonable to initially give them a minority position on the board, but have those seats convert to elected positions after X years (if they have multiple seats, stagger the conversions. yes, it's giveing them more representation on the board than they may 'deserve' basedon recent contributions, but since it is a _minority_ they aren't controlling things, so how does it hurt you (as opposed to mearly offending your FSF inspired sense of right)? This would not be the first time something like this has happened, and usually the company starts off with a majority position, in this case they are not asking for that. David Lang

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Chris Nighswonger wrote:

Hi David,

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:09 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:

...

Paul, If assets are worthless, why do you want the domain name that they have?

I think it would be very reasonable to initially give them a minority position on the board, but have those seats convert to elected positions after X years (if they have multiple seats, stagger the conversions.

yes, it's giveing them more representation on the board than they may 'deserve' basedon recent contributions, but since it is a _minority_ they aren't controlling things, so how does it hurt you (as opposed to mearly offending your FSF inspired sense of right)?

This would not be the first time something like this has happened, and usually the company starts off with a majority position, in this case they are not asking for that.

Sorry if the answer to this question is already obvious, but I'm a bit slow sometimes....

Exactly what has been your contribution(s) to this project?

nothing but opinions on the mailing list. I do realize that for some people that means that my opinions are worthless and I should be ignored. I hope that this is not the type of project that takes that attitude.

and

Exactly what motivates you to take an interest in it?

I have a large book collection, and if Koha get's it's act togeather, it may be the right tool for me to use to track my library. I've been very disappointed so far, but I've stayed subscribed hoping that things would get better. This included waiting for the 3.2 release to take place, but also includes seeing what the project decides to do in terms of it's future. This includes the license choice you make, as well as governence issues. Right now I would not reccomend anyone deploy Koha until some of this stuff gets settled (being decided in any direction would be better than the current limbo), and then depending on what the decisions are, how much bad blood is formed in the fighting, etc I will then decide if the result is something I'm willing to spend my time on. I've been running linux since 1994, and it's been my primary desktop since 1996. I'm not primarily a programmer (lack of time and too many things I'm doing), but I have contributed patches to various projects, have found and reported bugs, and have participated in design decisions (including suggestions that the coders considered significant enough to refer to me by name, both in the code and in linux conference presentations) David Lang

I'm curious as I always like to know what makes folks interested in Koha tick.

Kind Regards, Chris

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Nicole Engard wrote:

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 4:18 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:

David,

...

nothing but opinions on the mailing list. I do realize that for some people that means that my opinions are worthless and I should be ignored. I hope that this is not the type of project that takes that attitude.

All opinions matter and add to the discussion.

thank you.

...

Right now I would not reccomend anyone deploy Koha until some of this stuff gets settled (being decided in any direction would be better than the current limbo), and then depending on what the decisions are, how much bad blood is formed in the fighting, etc I will then decide if the result is something I'm willing to spend my time on.

Koha is "settled", the software is being used worldwide successfully. Not recommending it because of internal discussions of governance seems a bit odd to me. I pick my software based on whether it does what I need it to do and whether there is support (now and in the future).

from the outside it sure doesn't look 'settled', the issues of governance (and more precisely, arguments over such issues) directly involve the probability of the product being viable in the future. there are other projects that I have selected alternatives to based on my opinion on the project management and how likely they are to fragment, get tied up in political infighting instead of development, or have their first question to anyone making a suggestion/change request being "if you haven't contributed code, you don't matter" (or attitudes too far in that direction). Right now Koha is appearing unsettled enough that I'm leery of it, but not so crazy that I silently walk away. David Lang

On 16 Oct 2010 12:14, "DeGroff, Amy" <adegroff@ptfs.com> wrote: It seems, from reading comments so far, that some are in favor of a foundation and some are not. Many ideas have been shared to the listserv and our initial proposal remains on the wiki. As a stake holders in this -- LibLime remains interested in compromise; is it possible that a mutually acceptable set of conditions can be developed among us all? Is discussing the options in person - in 10 days - the most logical next step? Is talking with us / working on this topic something that interested parties are willing and able to do at KohaCon? Amy De Groff adegroff@ptfs.com On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 5:29 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Nicole Engard wro...

-- Amy Begg De Groff Product Manager LibLime, a Division of PTFS 1-301-654-8088 ext 162 adegroff@liblim... _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

I agree with Chris that getting it right is more important then rushing it, but that said, it should not be pushed back for long. I do not think David Lang's concerns about Koha are unique to him. I assume even if some other entity then a Koha Foundation was to hold community property their still would be a need to some governance structure. I quickly came up with a board makeup I think would be fair. It was off the top of my head and, even if everyone liked the make up (which won't be the case, I'm sure) it needs a lot of work on how it would be organized. For example, this doesn't say how votes would be done, who gets to vote, what if any pre-conditions would be necessary for people to agree, etc. Still it is helpful, for me at least, to see how such a comprised board could be constructed. My proposal is that PTFS and HLT each would get an equal number (3) of slots to appoint people as they see first for three years. The community would also get to vote for slots. These "appointed" slots would decrease by one each year until there was no appointed slots. Year 1: 3 appointed by PTFS + 3 appointed by HLT + 3 voted this year (2 yr term) = 9 total board members Year 2: 2 appointed by PTFS + 2 appointed by HLT + 3 (second year of 2 yr term) + 2 voted this year (2 yr term) = 9 total board members Year 3: 1 appointed by PTFS + 1 appointed by HLT  + 2  (second year of 2 yr term) + 3 voted this year (2 year term) = 7 total board members Year 4: 3 (second year of 2 yr term) + 4 voted this year  (2 year term) = 7 total board members Year 5: 4 (second year of 2 yr term) + 3 voted this year  (2 year term) = 7 total board members ... Anyway, it is just my thoughts as an alternative to PTFS/Liblime's proposal. I'm not invested in it, but maybe it is helpful. Or maybe not. Edward --- On Fri, 10/15/10, Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> wrote: From: Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> Subject: Re: [Koha] Foundation conversation To: "DeGroff, Amy" <adegroff@ptfs.com> Cc: Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Date: Friday, October 15, 2010, 7:32 PM And that my friends is why you don't start a mail leave the room to check on your 1.5 year old and leave your phone near your 3 year old. What I was going to say is that I think the discussions are just starting. I'm personally leaning towards either spi, software freedom conservancy or hlt to hold community property. I think it would be very premature and would disadvantage many people including our vocal david lang to try and conclude anything at kohacon. The programme is pretty chokka at the moment but I'm sure that some of the talks will prompt some good discussion in the hallway track.  Maybe we just let discussions continue for now? When I suggested an irc meeting at kohacon I hadn't counted on the events of the last few weeks, or the fact that it seems that every minute of the conference is already accounted for. I don't think there is any need to rush this, if we get it wrong it will be a mess, let's get 3.2 out of the way (very very close now) get 3.4 underway and let talks continue. Chris On 16 Oct 2010 12:14, "DeGroff, Amy" <adegroff@ptfs.com> wrote: It seems, from reading comments so far, that some are in favor of a foundation and some are not.  Many ideas have been shared to the listserv and our initial proposal remains on the wiki. As a stake holders in this -- LibLime remains interested in compromise;  is it possible that a mutually acceptable set of conditions can be developed among us all? Is discussing the options in person - in 10 days - the most logical next step?   Is talking with us / working on this topic something that interested parties are willing and able to do at KohaCon? Amy De Groff adegroff@ptfs.com On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 5:29 PM, <david@lang.hm> wrote:

On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Nicole Engard wro...--

Amy Begg De Groff Product Manager LibLime, a Division of PTFS 1-301-654-8088 ext 162 adegroff@liblim... _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

2010/10/16 ed c <terrapin44@yahoo.com>

My proposal is that PTFS and HLT each would get an equal number (3) of slots to appoint people as they see first for three years. The community would also get to vote for slots. These "appointed" slots would decrease by one each year until there was no appointed slots.

How does "I bought a company that holds a DNS name the community used to care about" rate any kind of additional voice or control? I like the "it's people -- not companies" scheme myself. -reed

...

I like the "it's people -- not companies" scheme myself.

Obviously I disagree in at least some limited form.

However if people form the anti-PTFS side are unwilling to compromise, I see only two options: 1) Two Kohas with the same name that will only more confuse people and make the issues David Lang mentioned much worse and more wide spread, or 2) The anti-PTFS people finishing the fork of the product and coming up with a new name for there version.

Ed, the obvious option you missed was this one... 3) The *PTFS* people finishing the fork of their product and coming up with a new name for their version. :) well... thats already been done!!! its called LEK :) seriously tho, why would we (read: everyone else in the greater-international-Koha-community) want to abandon our project's name (10 years folks!) because one 'stubbon' company forced us to change our website from A -> B the Koha project continues regardless of what PTFS decides to do in the future and in other news... congrats to software-coop and bywater! http://liswire.com/content/bywater-solutions-and-softwarecoop-collaborating-... way to collaborate Guys! cheers, Mason -- KohaAloha, NZ

On 16 October 2010 20:54, <david@lang.hm> wrote:

On Sat, 16 Oct 2010, JAMES Mason wrote:

...

...

...

I like the "it's people -- not companies" scheme myself.

Obviously I disagree in at least some limited form.

However if people form the anti-PTFS side are unwilling to compromise, I see only two options: 1) Two Kohas with the same name that will only more confuse people and make the issues David Lang mentioned much worse and more wide spread, or 2) The anti-PTFS people finishing the fork of the product and coming up with a new name for there version.

Ed, the obvious option you missed was this one... 3) The *PTFS* people finishing the fork of their product and coming up with a new name for their version. :)

well... thats already been done!!!  its called LEK :)

seriously tho, why would we (read: everyone else in the greater-international-Koha-community) want to abandon our project's name (10 years folks!) because one 'stubbon' company forced us to change our website from A -> B

for the simple reason that they own the name, and trying to browbeat a company into changing a name they own may be substantially more work than renaming the community version.

How exactly do they own the name? The own the koha.org domain name sure. HLT has the european country mark on Koha, donated by Biblibre, which they obtained from their French trademark, which predates any trademarks registered anywhere else. So I dont think it's that clear cut. Having said that, no one has suggested attempting to browbeat anyone into changing the name.

...

the Koha project continues regardless of what PTFS decides to do in the future

under some name or another, with more or less confusion of what is what, and with anyone who gets confused and asks questions about the wrong version in the wrong place getting an earful about the other side.

I have no bone in this fight. I have not been offended personally by PTFS, and I don't know anyone there or have any business relationship with anyone there either.

other FOSS projects that have had the name owned by someone they didn't like have changed their name (ethereal/wireshark isa perfect example here)

I repeat they arent the sole owners of the name.

you may feal that you have the moral right to the name, but the fact is that they have been paying for the name, if push comes to shove it will be quite a legal fight to get the name forcefully, and that (probably lengthy) fight will just serve to further confuse things in the meantime.

Or we could just get back to developing Koha and stop worrying about what is really a non issue. Chris

There was a recent post that asked for reasons to form a foundation. Here are a few that we think are important: 1. One organization that is granted the right to hold all Koha assets 2. A single Website for Koha 3. An end to further or future controversy or actions regarding name changes, copyrights, trademark issues domain names and any possible enforcement of the use/misuse of any of these assets. 4. A better way to manage and channel the development efforts all involved (corporate and independent) for the benefit of one community version. 5. New governance that will help manage the growth of Koha in a way such that corporate and independent entities will unite and both contribute time. Corporate entities will assist in funding the foundation until it is self supporting. 6. Full time paid staff that concentrate 100% of their time on the product to coordinate and accelerate the pace of development preventing serious delays in future releases as has been experienced since the release of version 3.0. By the way, we understand that there are pieces of Harley in version 3.2 and that the release was unfrozen to incorporate some of the Harley functionality released by LibLime. Amy De Groff adegroff@liblime.com On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:45 PM, Jared Camins-Esakov < jcamins@cpbibliography.com> wrote:

It seems, from reading comments so far, that some are in favor of a

...

foundation and some are not. Many ideas have been shared to the listserv and our initial proposal remains on the wiki.

That seems an accurate assessment. For those of us who were not privy to the foundation-forming discussion of last year, I think it would be helpful if the reasons for establishing a new foundation could be set forth. I read over the wiki, and it seems to talk more about how the foundation should be set up, and less about why. In fact, the comparison chart ( http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Comparison_chart_of_associations_and_fou... ) doesn't even express clearly the pros of the new foundation approach (either of them). I think, for me at least, this discussion would be more coherent if I knew why it was being repeated.

Regards, Jared Camins-Esakov

-- Jared Camins-Esakov Freelance bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/

-- Amy Begg De Groff Product Manager *LibLime, a Division of PTFS* 1-301-654-8088 ext 162 adegroff@liblime.com

Amy, et. al.,

There was a recent post that asked for reasons to form a foundation. Here are a few that we think are important:

Thank you for clarifying. I have a few more questions, as I try to clarify for myself, and hopefully for others, too, why we might need a Koha foundation.

1. One organization that is granted the right to hold all Koha assets

Fair enough. However, why a foundation instead of the HLT, or any of the other options discussed last year? I asked some of the folks in NZ, and they confirmed that HLT is legally permitted to hold assets.

2. A single Website for Koha

Could you clarify the relationship between a new foundation and the Koha website? There's the koha-community.org website which is the official website for Koha, and the koha.org website which, as I understood it, is run my PTFS/LibLime. Are there other websites, too, that are not controlled by anyone in the Koha community?

3. An end to further or future controversy or actions regarding name changes, copyrights, trademark issues domain names and any possible enforcement of the use/misuse of any of these assets.

Definitely a good thing. Any chance you could clarify how a new foundation would prevent controversy? Open source ultimately is dependent on voluntary association, and everyone agreeing to follow the same set of rules. Having a foundation doesn't mean that in 2012 someone couldn't come in and say "I don't like your rules, and I'm trademarking the word 'Koha' in Japan."

4. A better way to manage and channel the development efforts all involved (corporate and independent) for the benefit of one community version.

5. New governance that will help manage the growth of Koha in a way such

I am not sure that I understand what you're getting at here. Based on my understanding, however, it seems to me that the solution here is transparency. I would speculate that most developers are working on the projects that *they* want to work on, either for their own use or for their clients' use. To take a concrete example: I completely understand why an "image library" feature is not a high priority for the Koha project. If someone wants a digital library, he or she is probably better off installing a digital library system like Greenstone or Kete (full disclosure: I've used neither). On a general level, I agree with that entirely. Koha is an awesome ILS, let projects produce awesome digital libraries. On a specific level, however, this is a feature that I needed. So I developed it, and will continue to develop features that I need, whether they are destined for mainstream Koha or not, and make them all available in my public repository for anyone else who can use them. That said, I certainly hope that all the features I develop are incorporated into mainstream Koha, because rebasing my code every few days is a nuisance. My development efforts will continue much in this vein, regardless of the existence or non-existence of a foundation. that corporate and independent entities will unite and both contribute time. Corporate entities will assist in funding the foundation until it is self supporting. This seems very similar to point 4. Putting that aside, don't both corporate and independent entities contribute time to the Koha project right now?

6. Full time paid staff that concentrate 100% of their time on the product to coordinate and accelerate the pace of development preventing serious delays in future releases as has been experienced since the release of version 3.0.

This seems clear enough, although I am not quite sure why a new foundation is required for this. If I had a lot of spare change lying around, couldn't I hire a full-time developer to work on Koha? Thanks for clarifying. Regards, Jared Camins-Esakov P.S. Should anyone actually have a use for the image library feature I used in my example, it's available in my public repo at http://github.com/jcamins/koha/tree/image_library -- Jared Camins-Esakov Freelance bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC (phone) +1 (917) 727-3445 (e-mail) jcamins@cpbibliography.com (web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/

--- On Fri, 10/15/10, Bob Birchall @ Calyx <bob@calyx.net.au> wrote:

From: Bob Birchall @ Calyx <bob@calyx.net.au> Subject: Re: [Koha] Foundation conversation To: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Date: Friday, October 15, 2010, 9:31 PM

...

from the outside it sure doesn't look 'settled', the issues of governance (and more precisely, arguments over such issues)

David wrote: directly involve the

...

probability of the product being viable in the future.

Huh?  Where do you get that from?  There is a strong and vibrant project at koha-community.org with input from around the world (including the USA).  A US support company runs another project (LEK - which is not open source as far as I know).  Many people hope that these two can be brought back together.  But to suggest that is critical to the future of the project misunderstands how the project works, imho. 

That is easy to say for people in the community or very familiar with it (and possibly even to those who understand Open Source development), but it can be a huge red flag for others. Perception is reality. Edward

Bob Birchall CALYX

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