Hello Koha Community! I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself. My name is Sean McIntyre and I was brought on board PTFS, after they acquired LibLime on March 15th, to manage all of the software development work related to their ILS / Koha business. This is an exciting opportunity for me and I wanted to share a bit of my background with all of you, as I expect to be an active participant in this Open Source Community as it moves forward (if you'll have me). My family and I live in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington D.C. and have been here since 1981; which is a very long time for this area of the United States. After graduating high school I went on to earn a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the next 20+ years, I held a variety of positions in the D.C. Metropolitan area in government contracting as well as commercial software ventures. My resume includes two start-ups and the last 6 years of my career at AOL; the last 3 of which I ran all the technology on the AOL News site, the 4th largest in the world. My background includes a dozen or more programming languages and consistent use of open source software since the mid-90s. In my role here at LibLime, I am involved in all of our software activities, particularly our large sponsored development projects. It is my intent that my team and I will work effectively with the community, building upon some of the collaboration that pre-dated the acquisition in March. Most of our clients are strong advocates of their sponsored development benefiting the open source community as a whole and we intend to honor our clients desires in this area, even encouraging those who feel less strongly about this. Our client base has grown substantially since the acquisition and we have inherited two very large, demanding software development activities that are on a tight schedule. I mention this, as it has an impact on my resources in the near term. Obviously, we have to place a priority on meeting the needs of our paying clients and their time lines. At no time however would I want that to cast a doubt on our overall goal to work effectively with the community and make contributions. It just may be the case that given our current resourcing and economics that features built for our clients will be available to them first to test and flesh out. This will allow our contributions to be of a higher quality then if we released them immediately and to meet the demanding schedules we have inherited. We are looking at different mechanisms to share with the broad community what we are working on, with the thought of reducing the duplication of effort on significant software enhancements and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we might do this most effectively. Soon I'll be joining the IRC chat on a regular basis and welcome any and all comments or thoughts. If you perceive my team or I are doing something that is not as beneficial to the community as it could be, please let me know. I'd be happy to talk about it and am optimistic that many of these perceptions are based on mis-understandings that are easily cleared up. Sincerely, Sean McIntyre Engineering Mgr, ILS LibLime, a Division of PTFS
2010/5/15 Sean T. McIntyre <smcintyre@ptfs.com>:
Hello Koha Community!
Welcome! We look forward to seeing more of you. Will you be attending -- http://www.kohacon10.org.nz/ ?
Soon I'll be joining the IRC chat on a regular basis and welcome any and all comments or thoughts. If you perceive my team or I are doing something that is not as beneficial to the community as it could be, please let me know. I'd be happy to talk about it and am optimistic that many of these perceptions are based on mis-understandings that are easily cleared up.
Since you asked, I guess I'll go ahead and start in. Let me start by saying, as many others have, the Harley code availability is really fabulous to see (really truly great stuff). But, the communication around it on the front page of koha.org is misleading to my eyes on two points: - it presents Harley as an official Koha release, which is clearly not correct - it re-brands the normal Koha releases as "Community Koha" which is not correct The first point seems likely to create confusion in those seeking support from the community since people will be coming to us thinking it is an official release. The second point seems just a bit bold. Prefixing the term "Community" in front of a product and giving it lower billing is normally done when a commercial company is providing a hobbled open source version of a useful product. It's certainly the impression I would get from looking at koha.org if I didn't know better. thanks, -reed
I just realised I didn't suggest some alternate wording-- On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Reed Wade <reed@catalyst.net.nz> wrote:
- it presents Harley as an official Koha release, which is clearly not correct
Clearly describing it on the front page as a PTFS (or Liblime) product makes the most sense to me. It helps people understand what it is and gives you the credit for the additions.
- it re-brands the normal Koha releases as "Community Koha" which is not correct
Perhaps "community supported Koha". That doesn't quite capture the scope but is better than a re-branding. -reed
Reed, First off thanks for the note. I do not know yet if I'll be attending Koha Con, as we have a LOT of work we inherited and not a lot of time to do it. If it does work out, I will certainly let you and others know well in advance. New Zealand would be a great place to visit... Thank you for the very nice words regarding our Harley release, that work was all done before I came on board, but the team will be pleased to hear the compliments. Before I dive into the rest of your note, just a couple points regarding my outlook on the world. First, any given situation can ALWAYS be improved and I find myself continually looking for such improvements in all that I do. Constructive feedback such as you have provided is a "gift", and should always be received with an open mind. Second, a person's point of view or opinion is just that; it is not a factual statement that can be proven to be right or wrong. It is their view and should be respected and perhaps used to further a common understanding. Not all of the above philosophies are pertinent to what you raised in your note, but I have very few such tenants that influence my outlook on the world, so I thought I'd share them all now at the outset. :) Now, to the points you raise. I am in agreement that the communication could have been done differently and in such a way as to more clearly get across our intent. As I said above, there is always room for improvement and there is ample opportunity in this case. Prior to the acquisition we were a modest sized company with a very small portion of it working in the Koha / ILS space; this division is the only portion of the company that has had any experience with this open source community or any other open source community. Post acquisition, the division has increased in size and importance to the overall company and many others in the company have been called upon to contribute to our efforts. The announcement of 'Harley' exposes the fact that we have a good deal yet to learn regarding dealing with open source software communities and I expect we will benefit from this experience going forward. To be clear, our intent in offering the 'Harley' release to the community was for it to be received as a positive step. Our pre-acquisition clients had always advocated that their sponsored work be shared back with the community and this had been our intent since well before the acquisition. If anything, all of the activity related to the acquisition slowed us down a bit in taking this step; but it was never in doubt that this was going to be done. Unfortunately, the timing of this was quite poor on two fronts. First, it coincided with the acquisition and all the activities surrounding it; this did not help in making our intentions clear. Second, with version 3.2 in alpha and feature frozen, we knew it would be difficult to incorporate 'Harley' into 3.2 at this late date. However, we felt it was still valuable as a collection of features and wanted to allow libraries to benefit from it without having to wait for version 3.4; which would hopefully incorporate many of the beneficial features we had offered. As I said, the timing was just unfortunate on this front. Three months earlier (s/w was not ready) or three months later (did not want to artificially delay it) would have been far less complicated for all involved. Your suggestions on language that might have been received better than what we chose seem quite good to me. It was a bit of a struggle for us as what we were describing had inherent complexities as noted above. We felt good about labeling the release 'Harley', as that had no intrinsic meaning. As you say however, the language we used has caused some confusion. In fact, our own customers are a bit confused as to which "flavor" (deliberately trying to use a term that is not overloaded) of Koha has the most features. For us, there are three choices we can offer. The community supported 3.2 alpha Koha, 'Harley' or the LibLime Enterprise Koha; each of which have some unique features that could make them attractive options. Overtime, we would like these to come together in some fashion for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is to eliminate potential confusion. As we go forward, how would you and others like the Koha 3.2 alpha software referred to? Does the phrase you have used here, "community supported Koha" work for the majority? How do other vendors deal with this terminology challenge? Our preference would be to use terms that everyone is comfortable with across the board, the greater value here is in the software not the labels affixed to that software. Sean McIntyre Engineering Mgr, ILS LibLime, a Division of PTFS P.S. I am afk most of the weekend camping, so I'll be catching up on the thread Monday. On 5/14/2010 5:45 PM, Reed Wade wrote:
2010/5/15 Sean T. McIntyre<smcintyre@ptfs.com>:
Hello Koha Community!
Welcome!
We look forward to seeing more of you. Will you be attending -- http://www.kohacon10.org.nz/ ?
Soon I'll be joining the IRC chat on a regular basis and welcome any and all comments or thoughts. If you perceive my team or I are doing something that is not as beneficial to the community as it could be, please let me know. I'd be happy to talk about it and am optimistic that many of these perceptions are based on mis-understandings that are easily cleared up.
Since you asked, I guess I'll go ahead and start in.
Let me start by saying, as many others have, the Harley code availability is really fabulous to see (really truly great stuff).
But, the communication around it on the front page of koha.org is misleading to my eyes on two points:
- it presents Harley as an official Koha release, which is clearly not correct - it re-brands the normal Koha releases as "Community Koha" which is not correct
The first point seems likely to create confusion in those seeking support from the community since people will be coming to us thinking it is an official release.
The second point seems just a bit bold. Prefixing the term "Community" in front of a product and giving it lower billing is normally done when a commercial company is providing a hobbled open source version of a useful product. It's certainly the impression I would get from looking at koha.org if I didn't know better.
thanks, -reed
On 15/05/2010 1:30 p.m., Sean McIntyre wrote:
As we go forward, how would you and others like the Koha 3.2 alpha software referred to? Does the phrase you have used here, "community supported Koha" work for the majority? How do other vendors deal with this terminology challenge? Our preference would be to use terms that everyone is comfortable with across the board, the greater value here is in the software not the labels affixed to that software.
Hi Sean, I am only very vaguely involved with Koha - basically lurking on IRC and the lists to keep up to date after some summer work that involved deploying Koha, in case I want to get more involved in the future - and as such can not attempt to speak for anyone in the community but myself.
From my (mostly) outsider point of view, the most logical system I can see would be to name based on treating "community supported Koha" as the original, and the PTFS versions as forks.
While I understand the situation is slightly more complicated than that, it seems like a good approximation. A fork indicates some difference from the original without making any implications as to superiority either way. Calling original Community, on the other hand, does imply inferiority for me due to its use in other projects, as pointed out by Reed. "Community supported Koha" could be referred to as simply "Koha" for the general public, tacking on something like "Standard" or "Trunk" as appropriate for the audience when necessary to make the distinction clear, and the PTFS/LibLime versions as "PTFS Enterprise/Harley Koha". My two cents. Braedon Vickers
Braedon, Thank you for your 2 cents. You make some very good points. The term 'fork' however has a good number of negative connotations, so we have reason to want to avoid using that term and don't feel it communicates the situation accurately. Your point on how the term "Community" is often perceived is a good one and we will certainly avoid that phrasing as we go forward. Sean McIntyre Engineering Mgr, ILS LibLime, a Division of PTFS On 5/14/2010 11:02 PM, Braedon Vickers wrote:
On 15/05/2010 1:30 p.m., Sean McIntyre wrote:
As we go forward, how would you and others like the Koha 3.2 alpha software referred to? Does the phrase you have used here, "community supported Koha" work for the majority? How do other vendors deal with this terminology challenge? Our preference would be to use terms that everyone is comfortable with across the board, the greater value here is in the software not the labels affixed to that software.
Hi Sean,
I am only very vaguely involved with Koha - basically lurking on IRC and the lists to keep up to date after some summer work that involved deploying Koha, in case I want to get more involved in the future - and as such can not attempt to speak for anyone in the community but myself. From my (mostly) outsider point of view, the most logical system I can see would be to name based on treating "community supported Koha" as the original, and the PTFS versions as forks.
While I understand the situation is slightly more complicated than that, it seems like a good approximation. A fork indicates some difference from the original without making any implications as to superiority either way. Calling original Community, on the other hand, does imply inferiority for me due to its use in other projects, as pointed out by Reed.
"Community supported Koha" could be referred to as simply "Koha" for the general public, tacking on something like "Standard" or "Trunk" as appropriate for the audience when necessary to make the distinction clear, and the PTFS/LibLime versions as "PTFS Enterprise/Harley Koha".
My two cents.
Braedon Vickers _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
On 15 May 2010 15:37, Reed Wade <reed@catalyst.net.nz> wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Sean McIntyre <smcintyre@ptfs.com> wrote:
Reed,
[ lots of good stuff deleted ]
Sean that all sounds great. I don't have anything specific to add but I'm sure others will.
Enjoy your weekend and I hope to catch you on IRC soon.
Hi Sean I want to extend my welcome as well, I'm sure that Colin and I (in our roles as QA and RM) will be talking with you a lot. The secret (well it's not really a secret we tend to tell it to everyone) to the success of Koha has always been open and honest communication, and I'm heartened that this gels with your world view. I'm not going to spend much time talking about Harley, I think both Reed and Chris N have said what I would have said .. .and more eloquently as well. I too think that with some work, and a few key decisions made we can repair the rift and build a good working relationship. What is heartening to me, that through all of the turbulent times, first with Liblime in 2009 and the rocky start to 2010 with PTFS, development has continued at the same rapid pace. Halfway through May and we are already at 87 commits from 15 different people (117 from 22 people in April). So whatever else is happening, it is not stopping work continuing on trying to create the best software we can. Chris
Chris, Thanks for the nice welcome. I too am optimistic that as we move past the acquisition and the flurry of activities and statements surrounding it we can establish a closer trust relationship with the Koha Community as a whole. Looking forward to working with you and Colin as we all move forward together. Best, Sean On 5/15/2010 3:22 AM, Chris Cormack wrote:
On 15 May 2010 15:37, Reed Wade<reed@catalyst.net.nz> wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Sean McIntyre<smcintyre@ptfs.com> wrote:
Reed,
[ lots of good stuff deleted ]
Sean that all sounds great. I don't have anything specific to add but I'm sure others will.
Enjoy your weekend and I hope to catch you on IRC soon.
Hi Sean
I want to extend my welcome as well, I'm sure that Colin and I (in our roles as QA and RM) will be talking with you a lot. The secret (well it's not really a secret we tend to tell it to everyone) to the success of Koha has always been open and honest communication, and I'm heartened that this gels with your world view.
I'm not going to spend much time talking about Harley, I think both Reed and Chris N have said what I would have said .. .and more eloquently as well.
I too think that with some work, and a few key decisions made we can repair the rift and build a good working relationship. What is heartening to me, that through all of the turbulent times, first with Liblime in 2009 and the rocky start to 2010 with PTFS, development has continued at the same rapid pace. Halfway through May and we are already at 87 commits from 15 different people (117 from 22 people in April). So whatever else is happening, it is not stopping work continuing on trying to create the best software we can.
Chris
Thanks Reed, hope to chat soon... Sean On 5/14/2010 11:37 PM, Reed Wade wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Sean McIntyre<smcintyre@ptfs.com> wrote:
Reed,
[ lots of good stuff deleted ]
Sean that all sounds great. I don't have anything specific to add but I'm sure others will.
Enjoy your weekend and I hope to catch you on IRC soon.
thanks, -reed
Dear Sean, my name is Zeno Tajoli, I'm working in Italy in ICT for Libraries from 2000 as perl developer. I earn a Master of Library Science at Univesrity of NewCastel (UK). I work for CILEA, a vendor of Koha in Italy.
Obviously, we have to place a priority on meeting the needs of our paying clients and their time lines. At no time however would I want that to cast a doubt on our overall goal to work effectively with the community and make contributions. It just may be the case that given our current resourcing and economics that features built for our clients will be available to them first to test and flesh out. This will allow our contributions to be of a higher quality then if we released them immediately and to meet the demanding schedules we have inherited.
Is clear that the time table of paying clients is the priority for a vendor (for me it is).
As you point out, we have made available all of the software enhancements and mods that pre-date the acquisition in a fashion that the release managers can work with them.
this is the 'Harley Release', a very ggod job. Well done.
As I've said, this is not the case on LLEK due to decisions made by the previous owners.
Ok and you don't have the time/people/money to do the same for LLEK. What I suggest you ? Upload the tar.gz of LLEK somewhere with all docs and test that you have now. Publish the LLEK repository as you have now, also if it is not a git repository. Send a mail to koha-devel. We will download the code, we see what it is useful and we will re-implement the features. Probably not all features, only the most important. A little help is better that no help. Bye Zeno Tajoli Zeno Tajoli CILEA - Segrate (MI) tajoliAT_SPAM_no_prendiATcilea.it (Indirizzo mascherato anti-spam; sostituisci quanto tra AT con @)
participants (6)
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Braedon Vickers -
Chris Cormack -
Reed Wade -
Sean McIntyre -
Sean T. McIntyre
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Zeno Tajoli