Hello Koha Community My name's Mark Johnson, and I work for OSS Watch at the University of Oxford. Recently, we published a document entitled "Open Source Options for Education"[1] which includes a mention of Koha. After we announced the document's publication, we received some feedback from the Koha community via Twitter that we'd given the wrong link and a misleading example of Koha's usage, so I've come here to make sure that we can set it right. We've not changed the link for Koha to point to koha-community.org, as requested by a message on Twitter[2]. We were also informed that our example of Koha being used at the University of the West of England was in fact "LibLime Academic Koha", which "is not FOSS, nor has it ever been"[3]. This is obviously a misunderstanding on my part. It was my understanding that LibLime was simply a company providing commercial support for the open source Koha product. Am I now correct in believing that it (also?) produces a separate, closed-source product called "LibLime Academic Koha"? Any background to this would be very much appreciated. Finally, if anyone would be willing to share an example of the open source Koha system being used in their educational institution for me to use in place of the UWE example, particularly if they are based in the UK, I would be very grateful indeed! Many Thanks Mark Johnson [1] http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/ossoptionseducation [2] https://twitter.com/nengard/status/293088894000451585 [3] https://twitter.com/KohaAloha/status/293313158410534913 -- Mark Johnson Development Manager OSS Watch http://oss-watch.ac.uk
Mark, I am one of the people who updated you via Twitter (Thanks for touching base and the quick response!). I am heading out to a meeting so I can' give you the whole story, but there is a bibliography that might interest you: https://www.zotero.org/groups/koha/items you can search for keywords in the top right and find articles about the different versions of Koha. The Feminist Library is a library in the UK that is using Koha: http://feministlibrary.co.uk/ Once again I'm sure those in the UK can give you more examples. Thanks Nicole C. Engard Documentation Manager On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 7:18 AM, Mark Johnson <mark.johnson@it.ox.ac.uk>wrote:
Hello Koha Community My name's Mark Johnson, and I work for OSS Watch at the University of Oxford. Recently, we published a document entitled "Open Source Options for Education"[1] which includes a mention of Koha.
After we announced the document's publication, we received some feedback from the Koha community via Twitter that we'd given the wrong link and a misleading example of Koha's usage, so I've come here to make sure that we can set it right.
We've not changed the link for Koha to point to koha-community.org, as requested by a message on Twitter[2].
We were also informed that our example of Koha being used at the University of the West of England was in fact "LibLime Academic Koha", which "is not FOSS, nor has it ever been"[3]. This is obviously a misunderstanding on my part. It was my understanding that LibLime was simply a company providing commercial support for the open source Koha product. Am I now correct in believing that it (also?) produces a separate, closed-source product called "LibLime Academic Koha"? Any background to this would be very much appreciated.
Finally, if anyone would be willing to share an example of the open source Koha system being used in their educational institution for me to use in place of the UWE example, particularly if they are based in the UK, I would be very grateful indeed!
Many Thanks Mark Johnson
[1] http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/**resources/ossoptionseducation<http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/ossoptionseducation> [2] https://twitter.com/nengard/**status/293088894000451585<https://twitter.com/nengard/status/293088894000451585> [3] https://twitter.com/KohaAloha/**status/293313158410534913<https://twitter.com/KohaAloha/status/293313158410534913>
-- Mark Johnson Development Manager OSS Watch http://oss-watch.ac.uk ______________________________**_________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/**mailman/listinfo/koha<http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha>
On 29/01/13 13:06, Nicole Engard wrote:
I am one of the people who updated you via Twitter (Thanks for touching base and the quick response!). I am heading out to a meeting so I can' give you the whole story, but there is a bibliography that might interest you: https://www.zotero.org/groups/koha/items you can search for keywords in the top right and find articles about the different versions of Koha.
Thanks Nicole, I'll have a read through. Mark -- Mark Johnson Development Manager OSS Watch http://oss-watch.ac.uk
On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 12:18:43PM +0000, Mark Johnson wrote:
Finally, if anyone would be willing to share an example of the open source Koha system being used in their educational institution for me to use in place of the UWE example, particularly if they are based in the UK, I would be very grateful indeed!
Staffordshire University are running community Koha supported by us. Colin -- Colin Campbell Chief Software Engineer, PTFS Europe Limited Content Management and Library Solutions +44 (0) 800 756 6803 (phone) +44 (0) 7759 633626 (mobile) colin.campbell@ptfs-europe.com skype: colin_campbell2 http://www.ptfs-europe.com
We've not changed the link for Koha to point to koha-community.org, as requested by a message on Twitter[2].
I assume that by "not" you mean "now" :)
It was my understanding that LibLime was simply a company providing commercial support for the open source Koha product. Am I now correct in believing that it (also?) produces a separate, closed-source product called "LibLime Academic Koha"?
LibLime does not support any version of Koha which is developed by the Koha open source community. They support one version, LibLime Koha 4-something, which is ostensibly open source because they sometimes push to a github repo, but which is developed exclusively by LibLime in isolation. They also sell "LibLime Academic Koha," which is 100% closed-source, despite being based on GPL'ed code. Both versions diverged from Koha around version 3.2. No one from LibLime contributes back to the open source version of Koha anymore. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
On 29/01/13 13:28, Owen Leonard wrote:
We've not changed the link for Koha to point to koha-community.org, as requested by a message on Twitter[2].
I assume that by "not" you mean "now" :)
Whoops! Yes, you're right.
It was my understanding that LibLime was simply a company providing commercial support for the open source Koha product. Am I now correct in believing that it (also?) produces a separate, closed-source product called "LibLime Academic Koha"?
LibLime does not support any version of Koha which is developed by the Koha open source community. They support one version, LibLime Koha 4-something, which is ostensibly open source because they sometimes push to a github repo, but which is developed exclusively by LibLime in isolation.
They also sell "LibLime Academic Koha," which is 100% closed-source, despite being based on GPL'ed code. Both versions diverged from Koha around version 3.2. No one from LibLime contributes back to the open source version of Koha anymore.
OK, thanks for clearing that up! -- Mark Johnson Development Manager OSS Watch http://oss-watch.ac.uk
Hi Mark, Staffordshire University in the UK is using the Community version of Koha. Dave Parkes blog includes the announcement in 2010: http://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/informationlandscape/2010/12/10/staffordshire-univ... Also the British Library for Development Studies may be relevant: http://blds.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/migrating_to_koha_a_BLDS_journey.pdf There are also some Health libraries that sometimes are seen as academic. These and the above all use the Koha Community Open Source Software. I see others have advised about the history concerning Koha-Community and Liblime. I hope this helps. Ian On 29/01/2013 12:18, Mark Johnson wrote:
Hello Koha Community My name's Mark Johnson, and I work for OSS Watch at the University of Oxford. Recently, we published a document entitled "Open Source Options for Education"[1] which includes a mention of Koha.
After we announced the document's publication, we received some feedback from the Koha community via Twitter that we'd given the wrong link and a misleading example of Koha's usage, so I've come here to make sure that we can set it right.
We've not changed the link for Koha to point to koha-community.org, as requested by a message on Twitter[2].
We were also informed that our example of Koha being used at the University of the West of England was in fact "LibLime Academic Koha", which "is not FOSS, nor has it ever been"[3]. This is obviously a misunderstanding on my part. It was my understanding that LibLime was simply a company providing commercial support for the open source Koha product. Am I now correct in believing that it (also?) produces a separate, closed-source product called "LibLime Academic Koha"? Any background to this would be very much appreciated.
Finally, if anyone would be willing to share an example of the open source Koha system being used in their educational institution for me to use in place of the UWE example, particularly if they are based in the UK, I would be very grateful indeed!
Many Thanks Mark Johnson
[1] http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/ossoptionseducation [2] https://twitter.com/nengard/status/293088894000451585 [3] https://twitter.com/KohaAloha/status/293313158410534913
-- Ian Bays Director of Projects, PTFS Europe Limited Content Management and Library Solutions +44 (0) 800 756 6803 (phone) +44 (0) 7774 995297 (mobile) +44 (0) 800 756 6384 (fax) skype: ian.bays email: ian.bays@ptfs-europe.com
On 29/01/13 14:12, Ian Bays wrote:
Staffordshire University in the UK is using the Community version of Koha. Dave Parkes blog includes the announcement in 2010:
http://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/informationlandscape/2010/12/10/staffordshire-univ...
Also the British Library for Development Studies may be relevant:
http://blds.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/migrating_to_koha_a_BLDS_journey.pdf
Thank you, those examples are exactly the kind of thing I'm after. Mark
Boston University's British Programmes is on Koha -- http://library.bu-london.co.uk/ Marshall Breeding's lib-web-cats is an excellent source for answering this type of question: http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/ A quick search did not bring up any other Koha libraries of type Academic in the UK ... Best of luck, Cab Vinton Sanbornton Public Library
On 29/01/13 15:13, Cab Vinton wrote:
Marshall Breeding's lib-web-cats is an excellent source for answering this type of question:
http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/
A quick search did not bring up any other Koha libraries of type Academic in the UK ...
Searching for School libraries does turn up a couple though, thanks! Mark -- Mark Johnson Development Manager OSS Watch http://oss-watch.ac.uk
Cab Vinton <bibliwho@gmail.com>
Boston University's British Programmes is on Koha -- http://library.bu-london.co.uk/
The co-op supports that, as well as Florida State University in London which hasn't been mentioned yet. We've done many other ac.uk installations - the first was the Franciscan International Study Centre in Canterbury back on 2.0 or 2.2. There really have been quite a few of them now.
Marshall Breeding's lib-web-cats is an excellent source for answering this type of question: http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/
If it was FOSS and could cope with multiple support providers, as often happens with Koha for us, it might be excellent. Last I saw, I couldn't list our libraries accurately. More detail http://lists.koha-community.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2011-November/036458.ht... and many other discussions over the year. Some list themselves as "Koha -- Independent" but most don't seem to feel it's worth it. I think there's a general attitude that doing something innovative is a bad thing for ac.uk librarians to do, so when they do it, they'd prefer it kept quiet. Ken Chad's wiki HELibTech is a bit better, but gets miscorrected more often than I edit it. Usual wiki problem ;-) Oh, and there's the "UK Core Spec" drawn up by Koha's competitors. :-) Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/
participants (7)
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Cab Vinton -
Colin Campbell -
Ian Bays -
Mark Johnson -
MJ Ray -
Nicole Engard -
Owen Leonard