Supporting the Open Source Concept
Fellow Koha users and developers I have watched with growing concern the claims being made about various vendor's commitment to abiding by both the spirit and the letter of the open source movement as it pertains to Koha. Speaking on behalf of PTFS, I want to inform the Koha community that PTFS is committed to abide by not only the law, but the spirit of the open source movement. PTFS will submit all the Koha code we develop - both for our clients and the code we develop internally - back to the community for inclusion into Koha proper. We believe all vendors should do so as well. We've recently submitted several new enhancements to the Koha community and will continue to do so as we complete coding. On our part, we will not use "the code is still in testing" or "our clients haven't approved it yet" as an excuse for delaying our new enhancements to the community. We understand that for the open source concept to work all participants must contribute code and work collaboratively. This concept seems is the only ethical way to conduct business related to the Koha ILS movement. If you have any questions about PTFS, or our development concepts and strategies, please feel free to contact me directly. Best Regards John Yokley CEO P | T | F | S Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088, ext. #111 FAX: 301-654-5789 Cell: 240-447-8970 jyokley@ptfs.com www.ptfs.com
Good for you John! Thanks for stating your position - welcome board. Cheers Jo Ransom. Yokley, John wrote:
Fellow Koha users and developers
I have watched with growing concern the claims being made about various vendor’s commitment to abiding by both the spirit and the letter of the open source movement as it pertains to Koha. Speaking on behalf of PTFS, I want to inform the Koha community that PTFS is committed to abide by not only the law, but the spirit of the open source movement. PTFS will submit all the Koha code we develop – both for our clients and the code we develop internally – back to the community for inclusion into Koha proper. We believe all vendors should do so as well. We’ve recently submitted several new enhancements to the Koha community and will continue to do so as we complete coding. On our part, we will not use “the code is still in testing” or “our clients haven't approved it yet” as an excuse for delaying our new enhancements to the community.
We understand that for the open source concept to work all participants must contribute code and work collaboratively. This concept seems is the only ethical way to conduct business related to the Koha ILS movement.
If you have any questions about PTFS, or our development concepts and strategies, please feel free to contact me directly.
Best Regards
John Yokley
CEO P | T | F | S Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088, ext. #111 FAX: 301-654-5789 Cell: 240-447-8970 jyokley@ptfs.com <mailto:jyokley@ptfs.com> www.ptfs.com <http://www.ptfs.com>
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John, I have been watching the Koha list for at least five years and, after encouraging students to investigate Koha as a strategy for ensuring equitable power in searching for schools across Wisconsin, have similar concerns. LibLime, which bought the Koha trademark, is now as expensive as the far more developed Follett software. Thank you for reminding everyone about the essence of open source. Anne Zarinnia 2009/8/5 Joann Ransom <jransom@library.org.nz>
Good for you John!
Thanks for stating your position - welcome board.
Cheers Jo Ransom.
Yokley, John wrote:
Fellow Koha users and developers
I have watched with growing concern the claims being made about various vendor’s commitment to abiding by both the spirit and the letter of the open source movement as it pertains to Koha. Speaking on behalf of PTFS, I want to inform the Koha community that PTFS is committed to abide by not only the law, but the spirit of the open source movement. PTFS will submit all the Koha code we develop – both for our clients and the code we develop internally – back to the community for inclusion into Koha proper. We believe all vendors should do so as well. We’ve recently submitted several new enhancements to the Koha community and will continue to do so as we complete coding. On our part, we will not use “the code is still in testing” or “our clients haven't approved it yet” as an excuse for delaying our new enhancements to the community.
We understand that for the open source concept to work all participants must contribute code and work collaboratively. This concept seems is the only ethical way to conduct business related to the Koha ILS movement.
If you have any questions about PTFS, or our development concepts and strategies, please feel free to contact me directly.
Best Regards
John Yokley
CEO P | T | F | S Content Management and Library Solutions 6400 Goldsboro Road Suite 200 Bethesda, MD 20817 (301) 654-8088, ext. #111 FAX: 301-654-5789 Cell: 240-447-8970 jyokley@ptfs.com <mailto:jyokley@ptfs.com> www.ptfs.com <http://www.ptfs.com>
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_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- Anne Zarinnia, Ph.D., Dept. Educational Foundations University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI 53190 zarinnie@uww.edu 262 472-1463 (office)
LibLime, which bought the Koha trademark, is now as expensive as the far more developed Follett software.
I think it's important to point out that the issue of fair play in the Open Source sense has nothing to do with what a company does or doesn't charge. All the major players in Koha development right now are for-profit companies, and all deserve to charge just as much as they need to in order to sustain their businesses. If Follett works better for you and the price is right, use it! -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org> wrote:
LibLime, which bought the Koha trademark, is now as expensive as the far more developed Follett software.
I think it's important to point out that the issue of fair play in the Open Source sense has nothing to do with what a company does or doesn't charge. All the major players in Koha development right now are for-profit companies, and all deserve to charge just as much as they need to in order to sustain their businesses.
If Follett works better for you and the price is right, use it!
-- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
Owen has it right. Free software is not free hosting, bandwidth, storage, backup, migration, and support. -- Joe Atzberger LibLime - Open Source Library Solutions
Previous poster mentions... "Free software is not free hosting, bandwidth, storage, backup, migration, and support." -------- An additional reason we chose a vendor instead of hosting this software ourselves was personnel- we knew we would have to hire at least one and probably more programmers to deal with the software, and frankly we were just not interested in dealing with all the attendant issues that go along with that. What happens if they split? Which they almost certainly would, at some point. What happens if the learning curve is simply too steep, or we hired the wrong person, or, or, or, For us, it was a relatively simple business decision. It was clear then, and remains so. We would hire a vendor; the vendor would provide what we want. Watching vendors spar with one another is only entertaining when the sparring is professional and doesn't compromise the end-user experience, the overall client/vendor environment, or (in the case of opensource library software) the entire concept of the project in question. This is different than competition- competition is healthy! The philosophy of opensource software development, by all accounts, is one of cooperation and growth. Maturity and communication. Utility and function. Financial gains are not really addressed- yet we all recognize the need to feed our own families, and of course our vendors and their employees share that need. As I said earlier, our decision to hire a vendor was simple and clear. It is up to the vendor to figure out how to deliver the goods, within the terms of both our contract and the opensource license we all share, and we as customers simply accept that. TGIF! Joe Tho SEKLS/SEKnFIND/Southeast Kansas
Yokley, John <JYokley@...> writes:
[...] I want to inform the Koha community that PTFS is committed to abide by not only the law, but the spirit of the open source movement.
Hahahahahaha! I must have missed the memo about threatening other developers with turning things into legal issues being part of "the spirit of the open source movement". :-P If anyone was wondering why I don't generally answer emails from PTFS, now you know. Also, is PTFS the Koha vendor with the largest non-FOSS range? Niggled, -- 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
participants (7)
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Anne Zarinnia -
Joann Ransom -
Joe Atzberger -
koha＠joetho.com -
MJ Ray -
Owen Leonard -
Yokley, John