While it is certainly inappropriate for the only linked demonstrations to not include running community versions of the code, I agree with Nicole Engard in not asking for the removal of LibLime demonstration links, at least at this time. Rather than merely encouraging links to many demonstrations from particular support companies, I suggest that the support companies volunteer and/or co-operate in producing some especially good community demonstrations which are not an advertisement for any particular support company. The French demonstrations at the French Koha website, http://www.koha-fr.org/ , are run by BibLibre but they do not contain anything which could be construed as an advertisement for BibLibre. Community demonstrations which do not advertise support services via logins, URLs, or other means should be listed first. If some have an interest in providing other demonstrations which may be of interest for providing different configuration examples but may contain some subtle advertisement then those should be listed afterwords with some appropriate label separating them. Removing the only demonstrations now would be counter-productive. Furthermore, we should not push LibLime further away from the rest of the Koha community than they are taking themselves. We should welcome any change of stance that they might have on community participation in future without holding anything against them. There had been a time when the only English community demonstrations were provided by LibLime and as long as no one else was offering any others it was difficult to question their use as advertising for one particular support company. There are now other options and interested people should put those forward. Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783 On Thu, October 8, 2009 19:28, Nicole Engard wrote:

Owen, I'd actually change that and say that the demo links shouldn't be removed - there are plenty of genuine Open Source Koha installations that can be used instead - I know that ByWater has some: http://bywatersolutions.com/content/category/4/21/42/

Nicole

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 7:00 AM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org> wrote:

...

I think it's inappropriate for Koha.org to link to LibLime demos, given the fact that LibLime's demo page explicitly showcases "LibLime Enterprise Koha," a closed version of Koha which has not been shared with the community. Demoing LEK is useless to those who wish to participate in the Open Source Koha. I call on LibLime to either provide direct links to genuine Open Source Koha installations or remove the demo links.

 -- Owen

-- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

If the community wishes to link to Koha derivatives IN ADDITION TO mainline Koha, then fine, but it should be clearly labeled as such. I think we can all agree that when a link on koha.org says "Demo of Koha", it demonstrates what you get when you download and install Koha. I think some of the root of this problem is that LibLime considers (or really wants to consider) itself to BE the Koha community. I believe that LEK is not a fork to them; it's just the natural progression of the software, and Koha is the fork. If Koha wasn't continuing to develop, or just developing slowly in a the middle of a long-term stable release, this attitude might better match reality, but since Koha is about to jump to 3.2, LEK is what's going off in its own direction. If/when a LEK tarball is released, perhaps the idea is that it will be so amazing, so perfect and so difficult to merge with Koha, that Koha will just replace itself with LEK, and we'll all move forward together again. Again, just my opinions, but these thoughts have been brewing for some time, and it feels good to express them. -Ian -----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Paul Poulain Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 9:35 AM To: kohalist@agogme.com Cc: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha demo links on koha.org Thomas Dukleth a écrit :

The French demonstrations at the French Koha website, http://www.koha-fr.org/ , are run by BibLibre but they do not contain anything which could be construed as an advertisement for BibLibre. The exact link for french demo is http://demo.koha-fr.org, and, yes, we (BibLibre) host this demo (as well as the mailing lists), as a contribution (is it a "koha" in maori ;-) ?) to koha project.

We (community) lived with www.liblime.com/koha for years, but now, the main problem is that it is not a demo of the Koha anyone can download. And it is even not open source. So it has nothing to do on www.koha.org There is another related problem: liblime host & own koha.org domain name. So we can't do a lot of things about that, except crying & asking (which we must do, for sure, thanks owen to have pointed this problem) note: the (very small) positive point is that the community can see whas LEK contains... for example /cgi-bin/koha/admin/branch_transfer_limits.pl (many other available at : /cgi-bin/koha/admin/admin-home.pl) -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08 _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha ------------------------------------------------------------ This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender by return email and delete the original message. Please note, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The organization accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. =================================

I had missed the statement where LibLime admitted to forking; last news I caught they were still denying the fork. That pretty much shoots my speculation in the foot. To be clear, I was in no way advocating replacing Koha with LEK; that's a horrible, horrible idea of the reasons you stated, Kyle, and many more. I'm just trying to find a logically-consistent mindset for LibLime that could explain their actions and justifications therefore. It's not easy, and tends to lead to ridiculous conclusions. Cheers, -Ian -----Original Message----- From: Kyle Hall [mailto:kyle.m.hall@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 10:01 AM To: Walls, Ian Cc: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha demo links on koha.org

I think some of the root of this problem is that LibLime considers (or really wants to consider) itself to BE the Koha community. I believe that LEK is not a fork to them; it's just the natural progression of the software, and Koha is the fork.

Liblime has already stated that it is indeed a fork. From that statement I would assume they are fully aware that they have forked the code, and not visa versa. Besides, a community of one is no community at all.

If Koha wasn't continuing to develop, or just developing slowly in a the middle of a long-term stable release, this attitude might better match reality, but since Koha is about to jump to 3.2, LEK is what's going off in its own direction. If/when a LEK tarball is released, perhaps the idea is that it will be so amazing, so perfect and so difficult to merge with Koha, that Koha will just replace itself with LEK, and we'll all move forward together again.

Which would mean throwing out hundreds of man-hours of work on features that other Koha customers wanted and needed, or spending many more hours integrating them into LEK. We would also lose the entire repository history, which let's us know who wrote what. I don't know if that's extremely important, but if a feature is having a problem, it can help locate the developer who would know that code best. I think the more likely situation is some of the Koha devs see particular features in LEK, and spend the time porting those features to Koha. I doubt we could ever move every feature over, since without Git we won't know what has changed without close inspection.

Again, just my opinions, but these thoughts have been brewing for some time, and it feels good to express them.

I think in this community, everyone's opinion is valuable, that is one of this community's strengths. I thank you for bringing these ideas and views to the table, even if I don't agree with them fully. Kyle http://www.kylehall.info Information Technology Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )

-Ian

-----Original Message----- From: koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Paul Poulain Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 9:35 AM To: kohalist@agogme.com Cc: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha demo links on koha.org

Thomas Dukleth a écrit :

...

The French demonstrations at the French Koha website, http://www.koha-fr.org/ , are run by BibLibre but they do not contain anything which could be construed as an advertisement for BibLibre. The exact link for french demo is http://demo.koha-fr.org, and, yes, we (BibLibre) host this demo (as well as the mailing lists), as a contribution (is it a "koha" in maori ;-) ?) to koha project.

We (community) lived with www.liblime.com/koha for years, but now, the main problem is that it is not a demo of the Koha anyone can download. And it is even not open source. So it has nothing to do on www.koha.org There is another related problem: liblime host & own koha.org domain name. So we can't do a lot of things about that, except crying & asking (which we must do, for sure, thanks owen to have pointed this problem)

note: the (very small) positive point is that the community can see whas LEK contains... for example /cgi-bin/koha/admin/branch_transfer_limits.pl (many other available at : /cgi-bin/koha/admin/admin-home.pl)

-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 9:45 AM, Walls, Ian <Ian.Walls@med.nyu.edu> wrote: <snippage>

I think some of the root of this problem is that LibLime considers (or really wants to consider) itself to BE the Koha community.  I believe that LEK is not a fork to them; it's just the natural progression of the software, and Koha is the fork.  If Koha wasn't continuing to develop, or just developing slowly in a the middle of a long-term stable release, this attitude might better match reality, but since Koha is about to jump to 3.2, LEK is what's going off in its own direction. If/when a LEK tarball is released, perhaps the idea is that it will be so amazing, so perfect and so difficult to merge with Koha, that Koha will just replace itself with LEK, and we'll all move forward together again.

I thought our installation was already running 3.2. The manual had already been written: http://koha.org/documentation/manual/3.2 Shrug. -- Ben

Thanks, Nicole. I guess LibLime is just calling it 3.2. -- Ben On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Nicole Engard <nengard@gmail.com> wrote:

The manual I wrote for 3.2 is 3.2 - not the LEK features - just those being put into the public git repo for 3.2

Nicole

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Ben Ide <benide@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 9:45 AM, Walls, Ian <Ian.Walls@med.nyu.edu> wrote: <snippage>

...

I think some of the root of this problem is that LibLime considers (or really wants to consider) itself to BE the Koha community.  I believe that LEK is not a fork to them; it's just the natural progression of the software, and Koha is the fork.  If Koha wasn't continuing to develop, or just developing slowly in a the middle of a long-term stable release, this attitude might better match reality, but since Koha is about to jump to 3.2, LEK is what's going off in its own direction. If/when a LEK tarball is released, perhaps the idea is that it will be so amazing, so perfect and so difficult to merge with Koha, that Koha will just replace itself with LEK, and we'll all move forward together again.

I thought our installation was already running 3.2.  The manual had already been written: http://koha.org/documentation/manual/3.2

Shrug. -- Ben _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

To me, that theory just doesn't make sense. If it were true, why is it LEK, and not just Koha. Why would they be offering 'Community Koha' if LEK *is* 'Koha Community' ( assuming the theory were true ). I was poking around the Liblime site and came across this page: http://www.liblime.com/products/koha/koha-solution-comparison I am a bit upset because they are listing "Off-line circulation" as a LEK only feature. So not only is this false information, but they are taking credit for my own personal work ( it's listed under "LibLime Enhancements" ). Kyle http://www.kylehall.info Information Technology Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org ) On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Walls, Ian <Ian.Walls@med.nyu.edu> wrote:

...

I guess LibLime is just calling it 3.2.

If that's the case, that may reinvigorate my theory that LibLime considers their work to be the 'authoritative' Koha.  Given that most LEK features were originally slated for Koha 3.2, there is a correlation, but LEK (from what I understand) is missing many of the features that other, non-LibLime developers have been working on.  Hence the fork.  Does LEK address the other RFCs for Koha 3.2 that WALDO did not originally sponsor?  Are they being integrated into LEK from Koha, recoded by LibLime, or just dropped?

I suppose I should poke at the LEK demo and learn more.

-Ian

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Ian said: I'm going to give up trying to understand LibLime. I wanted so much for this whole thing to just be a misunderstanding, a difference in viewpoints that could be cleared up by communication. But falsely taking credit for someone else's work like this ruins any chance for sympathy. That's not acceptable behavior by any standards. And to that I add: How is it there is "no vendor lock-in" with Liblime's Express or LEK versions??? Another misleading claim on their http://www.liblime.com/products/koha/koha-solution-comparison page, I believe. Lori On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Walls, Ian <Ian.Walls@med.nyu.edu> wrote:

...

To me, that theory just doesn't make sense. If it were true, why is it LEK, and not just Koha. Why would they be offering 'Community Koha' if LEK *is* 'Koha Community' ( assuming the theory were true ).

...

I was poking around the Liblime site and came across this page: http://www.liblime.com/products/koha/koha-solution-comparison

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about this page, where they clearly differentiate themselves from the Koha community.

...

I am a bit upset because they are listing "Off-line circulation" as a LEK only feature. So not only is this false information, but they are taking credit for my own personal work ( it's listed under "LibLime Enhancements" ).

I'm going to give up trying to understand LibLime. I wanted so much for this whole thing to just be a misunderstanding, a difference in viewpoints that could be cleared up by communication. But falsely taking credit for someone else's work like this ruins any chance for sympathy. That's not acceptable behavior by any standards.

Moving on (better late than never),

-Ian

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On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com> wrote:

Thomas Dukleth a écrit :

...

The French demonstrations at the French Koha website, http://www.koha-fr.org/ , are run by BibLibre but they do not contain anything which could be construed as an advertisement for BibLibre. The exact link for french demo is http://demo.koha-fr.org, and, yes, we (BibLibre) host this demo (as well as the mailing lists), as a contribution (is it a "koha" in maori ;-) ?) to koha project.

Paul brings up another good point here - whether he knew it or not :) - The demos page on Koha.org should have demos in languages other than English if they exist and so it should link to an English demo and the BibLibre French version - and any others.

We (community) lived with www.liblime.com/koha for years, but now, the main problem is that it is not a demo of the Koha anyone can download. And it is even not open source. So it has nothing to do on www.koha.org There is another related problem: liblime host & own koha.org domain name. So we can't do a lot of things about that, except crying & asking (which we must do, for sure, thanks owen to have pointed this problem)

note: the (very small) positive point is that the community can see whas LEK contains... for example /cgi-bin/koha/admin/branch_transfer_limits.pl (many other available at : /cgi-bin/koha/admin/admin-home.pl)

-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

Reply inline: 1. MINUTES TO RESOLVE BUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. Original Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha demo links on koha.org On Fri, October 9, 2009 14:12, Kyle Hall wrote:

What we really need is fr.demo.koha.org, en.demo.koha.org, and so on. This would require Liblimes assistance, and we can ask, but I don't know how long it would take to set up.

It would take only a few minutes to direct domains or subdomains to something under community control. We should move on with the business of setting up a legal entity for the Koha project which can manage that and receive funding. 2. FASTEST WAY TO ORGANISE OURSELVES. The fastest way to set up such an entity which can receive donations to support what may be needed at least for an interim period is through having a foundation held by HLT or SPI for a temporary period. Setting up an independent Koha project entity should also be done but would take perhaps some months of discussions about bylaws which we could be discussing while already having legal status via another organisation such as HLT or SPI. An independent foundation now choice for which the majority voted in the first poll perhaps without understanding the question or implication well would delay matters because of all the discussion about bylaws and other matters needed and which ought to occur before registering. [There were some problems with the design of the first poll which we should fix in future by having wide community discussion of the drafting of any poll.] Registering an independent entity with the government is easy and may take little more than a couple of weeks. More weeks may be required to obtain certification of non-profit status. Yet before all that one has to know all the particulars of the registration and decide in what jurisdiction it should be registered primarily which may take months to agree. I believe that I understand correctly that both HLT and SPI either already have in SPI's case or within a few days can have in HLT's case a bank account in the US and in Europe to receive monetary donations in the local currency. Receiving donations in the local currency would allow the project to direct their use in that currency without any loss of value in currency conversion. HLT certainly already has a bank account to receive donations in another local currency where there is significant interest in the project. HLT is certainly the most flexible. I favour HLT because of their greater flexibility and commitment to the Koha project from its very inception. SPI has much better governance rules which we could discuss adopting or adapting for ourselves as an organisation held by another organisation and later as an independent organisation. HLT's charter grants them perhaps a little too much flexibility and the Koha community should expect a legal guarantee from them to take on the full trust of the community. They have demonstrated over the years their complete willingness to not try to exert any undue influence on the project for any private interests of their library. Combining that implicit trust with a guarantee for the Koha community gives me great confidence. I might be persuaded that SPI is a better choice but I merely guess that the very size of SPI would make it more difficult to obtain rapid attention when it may be needed. Perhaps some reports from other projects they host would persuade me otherwise. The Software Freedom Conservancy could also be a good choice but their worst problem is that they have become so popular that to preserve the degree and quality of attention given to each accepted project there is now a three to six month waiting list for application consideration. I think that the application waiting period is now too much time for the level of impatience I perceive from those most active in the Koha community. In the final ballot, please vote for a project organisation which we can actually implement now. Of the possibilities currently nominated that is only a foundation held by HLT and SPI for an interim period. The project can have all assets held on its behalf transferred to own independent foundation soon afterwords but everything needs to be agreed and in place first. 2. MANY PROBLEMS WITH THE COMMUNITY WEBSITE.

Somewhat of an annoyance, the 'Demos' link on koha.org takes me to the showcase, not to demos.

I had identified a large number of such problems including that one specifically when the new website went up. I reported them to the mailing list but I have not yet taken the time to report them formally as bugs. The worst problem is that the navigation links are not displayed in a visible manner on the world's most commonly used web browser, Internet Explorer with the default IE configuration. I have had to fix CSS problems with Internet Explorer and it can be tricky because some things are interpreted backwards to the standard. The default Plone stylesheets would have worked but they were not modified or replaced for the Koha website with cross-browser compatibility in mind. 3. NEW WEBSITES.

As an alternative, I just registered kohademos.org. I could make en.kohademos.org point to http://demo.koha-fr.org/, and fr.kohademos.org point to http://demo.koha-fr.org/cgi-bin/koha/changelanguage.pl?language=fr-FR. It seems like a reasonable way to handle it would be to have one company host a demo in their native language, for each language. This would spread out the amount of work and bandwidth required.

We should coordinate such efforts through an entity in which we can place our collective trust for holding the domains and other key aspects of the project. When we have ourselves properly organised, then we can make requests of LibLime from a position of strength as a community prepared to offer an alternative if LibLime is disinclined to cooperate. Presently, with LibLime in control of the community domain and no official community alternative to offer any request is made from a position of weakness. [...] Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783 [...]

Thanks Thomas for bringing this up - I haven't seen much discussion on list about the options for forming a foundation and I think it is important to note that for expediency sake we really need to align us with an exisiting non profit to get the ball rolling. Of your two choices I think HLT is the best fit since they are library specific, but I guess the results of the final survey (which I will finish when I'm back home) will tell us what the majority want. Nicole On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Kyle Hall <kyle.m.hall@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree completely. I will also be happy to donate kohademos.org to the Koha non-profit, when it is formed.

Kyle

http://www.kylehall.info Information Technology Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Thomas Dukleth <kohalist@agogme.com> wrote:

...

Reply inline:

1.  MINUTES TO RESOLVE BUT FIRST THINGS FIRST.

Original Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha demo links on koha.org

On Fri, October 9, 2009 14:12, Kyle Hall wrote:

...

What we really need is fr.demo.koha.org, en.demo.koha.org, and so on. This would require Liblimes assistance, and we can ask, but I don't know how long it would take to set up.

It would take only a few minutes to direct domains or subdomains to something under community control.  We should move on with the business of setting up a legal entity for the Koha project which can manage that and receive funding.

2.  FASTEST WAY TO ORGANISE OURSELVES.

The fastest way to set up such an entity which can receive donations to support what may be needed at least for an interim period is through having a foundation held by HLT or SPI for a temporary period.  Setting up an independent Koha project entity should also be done but would take perhaps some months of discussions about bylaws which we could be discussing while already having legal status via another organisation such as HLT or SPI.

An independent foundation now choice for which the majority voted in the first poll perhaps without understanding the question or implication well would delay matters because of all the discussion about bylaws and other matters needed and which ought to occur before registering.  [There were some problems with the design of the first poll which we should fix in future by having wide community discussion of the drafting of any poll.] Registering an independent entity with the government is easy and may take little more than a couple of weeks.  More weeks may be required to obtain certification of non-profit status.  Yet before all that one has to know all the particulars of the registration and decide in what jurisdiction it should be registered primarily which may take months to agree.

I believe that I understand correctly that both HLT and SPI either already have in SPI's case or within a few days can have in HLT's case a bank account in the US and in Europe to receive monetary donations in the local currency.  Receiving donations in the local currency would allow the project to direct their use in that currency without any loss of value in currency conversion.  HLT certainly already has a bank account to receive donations in another local currency where there is significant interest in the project.  HLT is certainly the most flexible.

I favour HLT because of their greater flexibility and commitment to the Koha project from its very inception.  SPI has much better governance rules which we could discuss adopting or adapting for ourselves as an organisation held by another organisation and later as an independent organisation.  HLT's charter grants them perhaps a little too much flexibility and the Koha community should expect a legal guarantee from them to take on the full trust of the community.  They have demonstrated over the years their complete willingness to not try to exert any undue influence on the project for any private interests of their library. Combining that implicit trust with a guarantee for the Koha community gives me great confidence.

I might be persuaded that SPI is a better choice but I merely guess that the very size of SPI would make it more difficult to obtain rapid attention when it may be needed.  Perhaps some reports from other projects they host would persuade me otherwise.

The Software Freedom Conservancy could also be a good choice but their worst problem is that they have become so popular that to preserve the degree and quality of attention given to each accepted project there is now a three to six month waiting list for application consideration.  I think that the application waiting period is now too much time for the level of impatience I perceive from those most active in the Koha community.

In the final ballot, please vote for a project organisation which we can actually implement now.  Of the possibilities currently nominated that is only a foundation held by HLT and SPI for an interim period.  The project can have all assets held on its behalf transferred to own independent foundation soon afterwords but everything needs to be agreed and in place first.

2.  MANY PROBLEMS WITH THE COMMUNITY WEBSITE.

...

Somewhat of an annoyance, the 'Demos' link on koha.org takes me to the showcase, not to demos.

I had identified a large number of such problems including that one specifically when the new website went up.  I reported them to the mailing list but I have not yet taken the time to report them formally as bugs.

The worst problem is that the navigation links are not displayed in a visible manner on the world's most commonly used web browser, Internet Explorer with the default IE configuration.  I have had to fix CSS problems with Internet Explorer and it can be tricky because some things are interpreted backwards to the standard.  The default Plone stylesheets would have worked but they were not modified or replaced for the Koha website with cross-browser compatibility in mind.

3.  NEW WEBSITES.

...

As an alternative, I just registered kohademos.org. I could make en.kohademos.org point to http://demo.koha-fr.org/, and fr.kohademos.org point to http://demo.koha-fr.org/cgi-bin/koha/changelanguage.pl?language=fr-FR. It seems like a reasonable way to handle it would be to have one company host a demo in their native language, for each language. This would spread out the amount of work and bandwidth required.

We should coordinate such efforts through an entity in which we can place our collective trust for holding the domains and other key aspects of the project.

When we have ourselves properly organised, then we can make requests of LibLime from a position of strength as a community prepared to offer an alternative if LibLime is disinclined to cooperate.  Presently, with LibLime in control of the community domain and no official community alternative to offer any request is made from a position of weakness.

[...]

Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY  10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783

[...]

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Thomas Dukleth <kohalist@agogme.com> wrote:

An independent foundation now choice for which the majority voted in the first poll perhaps without understanding the question or implication well would delay matters because of all the discussion about bylaws and other matters needed and which ought to occur before registering. [There were some problems with the design of the first poll which we should fix in future by having wide community discussion of the drafting of any poll.] Registering an independent entity with the government is easy and may take little more than a couple of weeks. More weeks may be required to obtain certification of non-profit status. Yet before all that one has to know all the particulars of the registration and decide in what jurisdiction it should be registered primarily which may take months to agree.

Agreed. We need to have the long-term goal of our own <your-favorite-organizational-term-goes-here>. But we need to deal with the present emergency *now* if not sooner. I favour HLT because of their greater flexibility and commitment to the

Koha project from its very inception. SPI has much better governance rules which we could discuss adopting or adapting for ourselves as an organisation held by another organisation and later as an independent organisation. HLT's charter grants them perhaps a little too much flexibility and the Koha community should expect a legal guarantee from them to take on the full trust of the community. They have demonstrated over the years their complete willingness to not try to exert any undue influence on the project for any private interests of their library. Combining that implicit trust with a guarantee for the Koha community gives me great confidence.

HLT appears to me to strike the absolute best balance for the immediate crisis. And they have already expressed their willingness to help. Without speaking for them, I would imagine they would be amiable to providing whatever assurances the community might desire as its long-term expectations.

When we have ourselves properly organised, then we can make requests of LibLime from a position of strength as a community prepared to offer an alternative if LibLime is disinclined to cooperate. Presently, with LibLime in control of the community domain and no official community alternative to offer any request is made from a position of weakness.

Again, agreed. At this point we need to separate the objective issues with LibLime from the more subjective ones and then allow the resulting organization to deal with those from a position of legal strength. It's the old "divided we fall" issue. I think further delay will only bring further chaos and weakness to our position as a community and will undoubtedly strengthen the hand of LibLime when it comes to the objective issues. Rather than continuing with discussion ad infinitum and ad nauseum (it's been how many years in discussion now?), we need to put our selection of choices to a vote and move on. Kind Regards, Chris

Dear colegues, I understand that it will be dificult to get a full agreement all over the world. Could we try to find some regional interest groups and grow for a worldwide foundation ? In Europe, France and UK have already dynamic and interested people. May be we could join to discuss all these subjects anywhere in Europe (Lisbon has a good weather...) Rafael António (Portugal) Citando Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com>:

Chris Nighswonger a écrit :

...

Rather than continuing with discussion ad infinitum and ad nauseum (it's been how many years in discussion now?), we need to put our selection of choices to a vote and move on. ++

(and ++ for HLT, as it has the legitimity, and is willing to help)

-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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rafael.antonio@sapo.pt asked:

I understand that it will be dificult to get a full agreement all over the world. Could we try to find some regional interest groups and grow for a worldwide foundation ? In Europe, France and UK have already dynamic and interested people. May be we could join to discuss all these subjects anywhere in Europe (Lisbon has a good weather...)

Well, we could have regional chapters, but forming and running KohaLA, KUDOS, KSF, software.coop (yes, we are open to new members, but are developer-only and not Koha-specific, so it's not automatic and we probably have to exist anyway for other reasons) and other distinct groups in each area is wasting our supporters' time and money in needless administration. In one of the recent polls, networking local associations (such as KUDOS, KohaLA) was supported by 12 out of 18 voters, 66.67%, placing it 8th on the list. I've yet to analyse the other survey. As I understand it, I actually agree with LibLime on this one: a worldwide 'hub' user group that has regional chapters would give the community much more control in a variety of ways and would provide a 'structure' without requiring all chapters to pay administration overheads. Hope that helps, -- MJ Ray (slef) LMS developer and webmaster at | software www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk | .... co IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html | .... op

Salvete! Many times this community strikes me as having many tribal properties, and not just for purposes of guilting Chris into a new feature ;) On the good side, this means that many people have input into how things operate and progress. Progress is quick when the gears are in motion. On the downside of things, sometimes we trust the wrong people. I feel as though this happened since power was concentrated in one person's hands, unofficially through corporate and other means. Largely, though, I feel as though we all failed here, because we failed to plan. So let's fix that. How can we ensure that this does not happen again in future, or happens more rarely? I think there's a lot of good work being done currently in regards to a foundation, and I also think that some of this is spurring general planning conversations. I apologise that I've not been around for more of it, but I still look at my email ;) Why cry and ask? Let's just move. Should we have to? No, but remember the days of the BBS when you could swear in leetspeak? It isn't possible to own all of the Koha related domains. We have more resources now than we have had in the past. I feel as though a window has been opened and there are people speaking their minds that have been stifled in past. So: Mission and Vision Foundation stuff Ensuring neutral resource holders Restating governance Figuring out conference trappings in a general sense Does that sound like a start? I bet Thomas Dukleth has put his great mind to this. He might have been getting some unnecessary flak of late, but if you don't like the length of his clear thoughts, skip em! Cheers, Brooke

Reply inline: On Sat, October 10, 2009 02:01, Chris Nighswonger wrote: [...]

Also, I find it interesting that now LibLime concludes that they are the "owner" of koha.org in the sense of being the final arbitrator of what is or is not published on that site. In the past they have championed themselves as "custodians" of the site.

If you have some time, please make a list of the past instances with citations to sources in which LibLime refer to themselves merely as custodian of the Koha community website.

But then such a change in position would fit only too well with the "new" LibLime....

[...] Thomas Dukleth Agogme 109 E 9th Street, 3D New York, NY 10003 USA http://www.agogme.com +1 212-674-3783

To repeat myself, I don't speak for LibLime. The fact is, and it would be great if we could just stick to the facts instead of just guessing at the intents of others, the fact is that "koha.org" is a site owned by LibLime (and/or associated entities). Thanks, -- Ben On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 10:01 PM, Chris Nighswonger <cnighswonger@foundations.edu> wrote:

Hi Ben,

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Ben Ide <benide@gmail.com> wrote:

...

This is probably better than demanding that the site own remove all their demo links.  They might just remove all the *other* links, instead, and rename the page.

Perhaps LibLime *should* go ahead and remove "all the *other* links." Honesty concerning their intentions would be more honorable (and tolerable) than the dishonest limbo in which they presume to keep.

Also, I find it interesting that now LibLime concludes that they are the "owner" of koha.org in the sense of being the final arbitrator of what is or is not published on that site. In the past they have championed themselves as "custodians" of the site. But then such a change in position would fit only too well with the "new" LibLime....

Kind Regards, Chris

From the front page of koha.org:

"Liblime now has two sets of demo sites available, one for public libraries and one for academic libraries." The link points to: http://www.liblime.com/demos -- Owen

Hi again Ben, On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Ben Ide <benide@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org> wrote:

...

From the front page of koha.org:

"Liblime now has two sets of demo sites available, one for public libraries and one for academic libraries."

The link points to: http://www.liblime.com/demos

Which one isn't publicly available version of Koha?  They both look like Koha version:      3.01.00.037 to me.

You appear to have overlooked a few differences between the LEK demo (version 3.01.00.037) and the Koha HEAD (version 3.01.00.061). LEK has biblios integrated into it, Koha does not LEK has several improvements to the saved reports section, Koha does not The list goes on and is actually enumerated in detail here: http://www.liblime.com/products/koha/koha-solution-comparison for your better information. (BTW: the two I mentioned above were verified against a comparison of the LEK demo (version 3.01.00.037) and a running copy of the current Koha HEAD (version 3.01.00.061)). Kind Regards, Chris

2009/10/13 Ben Ide <benide@gmail.com>:

Thanks, Chris.  You are right.  I'm looking at my version and assuming everyone else has access to those features and more (.061 being the higher number).

Mea culpa.

You know the old joke about assuming :) (Trying to lighten the tone of this thread :)) Chris

I'm reasonably certain that on Friday if you clicked on "Demo" on koha.org it took you to LibLime Enterprise Koha. Today it appears that link has been changed to the Showcase page.

Which makes no sense and is very confusing. The links there aren't demo's, they are live sites. It's not like a prospective Koha user can log into the intranet on any of those links to check it out. Kyle http://www.kylehall.info Information Technology Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org ) 2009/10/12 vtl@scls.lib.wi.us <vtl@scls.lib.wi.us>:

I'm reasonably certain that on Friday if you clicked on "Demo" on koha.org it took you to LibLime Enterprise Koha.  Today it appears that link has been changed to the Showcase page.

Vicki

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Ben Ide <benide@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi, Owen.

We can't find the site you mentioned.  Could you post it for us?

Thanks, -- Ben

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org> wrote:

...

I think it's inappropriate for Koha.org to link to LibLime demos, given the fact that LibLime's demo page explicitly showcases "LibLime Enterprise Koha," a closed version of Koha which has not been shared with the community. Demoing LEK is useless to those who wish to participate in the Open Source Koha. I call on LibLime to either provide direct links to genuine Open Source Koha installations or remove the demo links.

 -- Owen

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-- Vicki Teal Lovely

Software Applications Supervisor South Central Library System vtl@scls.lib.wi.us (608)261-9109

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