Can someone please help me understand what this statement at the bottom of the new Koha website means for the Koha community: "The Koha -- Open Source Library System is © 1999-2009 by LibLime & the Koha Development Team Koha^® and the Koha logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of LibLime <http://new.koha.org/liblime.com> and BibLibre <http://biblibre.com> in the United States, France and other countries. Distributed under the GNU GPL license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/>." Thanks, Jo.
Can someone please help me understand what this statement at the bottom of the new Koha website means for the Koha community:
"The Koha -- Open Source Library System is © 1999-2009 by LibLime & the Koha Development Team
Koha^® and the Koha logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of LibLime <http://new.koha.org/liblime.com> and BibLibre <http://biblibre.com> in the United States, France and other countries. Distributed under the GNU GPL license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/>." It means just what it says. I believe that individual contributors retain copyright of their particular "bits" of the work that go into "koha", which is who the "koha development team" are. Listing them all would be a bit cumbersome, and I think Liblime are the majority copyright holder at the moment. It's a little bit of a hangover from when Katipo ran the site - we had a similar statement. We haven't had a "body" to assign our copyrights too, so they are still owned by the
Joann Ransom wrote: people who wrote them. Various important names and trademarks have bee registered by some companies usually in their local jurisdictions to make sure they are held by someone within the Koha community. Both Liblime & BibLibre have said they'll assign those assets to a koha foundation when one eventuates, but of course we have to have a legal body who can "hold" them before they can be assigned. Cheers Rachel
Thanks,
Jo. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- ----------------------------- Rachel Hamilton-Williams General Manager Katipo Communications Ltd Phone: +64-4-934 1285 Mobile: 021 389 128 E-mail: rachel@katipo.co.nz Web: www.katipo.co.nz
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation? Is it simply filling out paperwork and registering as a non-profit? I'll be happy to start looking into this and talking with a lawyer I know who might be willing to give free advice. Lenora StreamNet Regional Librarian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission http://www.fishlib.org
Rachel Hamilton-Williams <rachel@katipo.co.nz> 5/10/2009 4:24 PM >>>
Joann Ransom wrote:
Can someone please help me understand what this statement at the bottom of the new Koha website means for the Koha community:
"The Koha -- Open Source Library System is © 1999-2009 by LibLime & the Koha Development Team
Koha^® and the Koha logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of LibLime <http://new.koha.org/liblime.com> and BibLibre <http://biblibre.com> in the United States, France and other countries. Distributed under the GNU GPL license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/>." It means just what it says. I believe that individual contributors retain copyright of their particular "bits" of the work that go into "koha", which is who the "koha development team" are. Listing them all would be a bit cumbersome, and I think Liblime are the majority copyright holder at the moment. It's a little bit of a hangover from when Katipo ran the site - we had a similar statement. We haven't had a
"body" to assign our copyrights too, so they are still owned by the people who wrote them. Various important names and trademarks have bee registered by some companies usually in their local jurisdictions to make sure they are held by someone within the Koha community. Both Liblime & BibLibre have said they'll assign those assets to a koha foundation when one eventuates, but of course we have to have a legal body who can "hold" them before they can be assigned. Cheers Rachel
Thanks,
Jo. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- ----------------------------- Rachel Hamilton-Williams General Manager Katipo Communications Ltd Phone: +64-4-934 1285 Mobile: 021 389 128 E-mail: rachel@katipo.co.nz Web: www.katipo.co.nz _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation?
Work on this has already begun, but all of the discussions have taken place off-list so no one can be blamed for not knowing about it. I hope that we'll be hearing more about it soon now that the issue has come to a head. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
2009/5/12 Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org>:
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation?
Work on this has already begun, but all of the discussions have taken place off-list so no one can be blamed for not knowing about it.
I hope that we'll be hearing more about it soon now that the issue has come to a head.
In some interesting synchronicity, there has been some discussion about the need for more public communication. I think for something as important as the Koha Foundation, public discussion is definitely merited. I do think that if we create our own foundation, the Apache Foundation is a great model to follow. They, while being a meritocracy, place a huge emphasis on community and consensus building. That is where I would like to see us. My 2 cents Chris
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Cormack" <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> To: "Owen Leonard" <oleonard@myacpl.org> Cc: "KOHA" <koha@lists.katipo.co.nz> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 4:27:53 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha trademarks 2009/5/12 Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org>:
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation?
Work on this has already begun, but all of the discussions have taken place off-list so no one can be blamed for not knowing about it.
I hope that we'll be hearing more about it soon now that the issue has come to a head.
In some interesting synchronicity, there has been some discussion about the need for more public communication. I think for something as important as the Koha Foundation, public discussion is definitely merited. I do think that if we create our own foundation, the Apache Foundation is a great model to follow. They, while being a meritocracy, place a huge emphasis on community and consensus building. That is where I would like to see us. My 2 cents Chris ------------- Here's a foundation example I was just looking at: http://www.dspace.org/index.php/DSpace-Federation/DSpace-Foundation.html Greg
2009/5/12 gsl <gsl@rhcl.org>:
------------- Here's a foundation example I was just looking at:
http://www.dspace.org/index.php/DSpace-Federation/DSpace-Foundation.html
Another option worthy of discussion is becoming a member of the software freedom conservancy http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/overview/ Chris
Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> wrote:
2009/5/12 gsl <gsl@rhcl.org>:
Here's a foundation example I was just looking at: http://www.dspace.org/index.php/DSpace-Federation/DSpace-Foundation.html
Another option worthy of discussion is becoming a member of the software freedom conservancy http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/overview/
I really would prefer Koha to be controlled by a democratic foundation instead of a self-perpetuating one. There are risks to democracy, but at least if it stuffs up, it's the whole community's responsibility. Both SFC nor DSpace look undemocratic to me, appointing barons for life to rule over their serf projects. One democratic multi-project foundation is SPI-inc.org which I've mentioned before. An example of a democratic single-project foundation which we could copy is foundation.gnome.org which I don't think I've mentioned in email before. The other aspect I'm pretty keen on is an Asset Lock, like SPI's Promises on Intellectual Property http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/1998-11-16.iwj.2 - in the UK, this can be enshrined in the incorporation documents, but I'm not sure whether the US can do that. Article XVI of the DSpace bylaws look close, but Article X seems to suggest that all assets can be distributed as payment, which seems wrong. Anyway, this is all moot: LibLime are working on something and we're waiting to see what they propose. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef). LMS developer and supporter for a small, friendly worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237
"Lenora Oftedahl" <OFTL@critfc.org> wrote:
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation? Is it simply filling out paperwork and registering as a non-profit? I'll be happy to start looking into this and talking with a lawyer I know who might be willing to give free advice.
Anyone can fill out paperwork and register as a non-profit, but we need to agree how it will work. There are at least four proposals made in the last three years that I remember, which maybe illustrate the range of views:- 1. I suggested applying to become an associated project of SPI-Inc.org so that we have a vendor-neutral foundation to hold assets until we have another foundation - appoint Kaitiaki as liaison - I think some suggested that being part of a technical/philanthropic foundation, even temporarily, would be harmful for our reputation among librarians; 2. someone else (Andres?) suggesting applying to become an Apache.org project - I'm not keen because this would change the way the project works in several ways to fit the Apache model, but maybe that's better than our current practices; 3. I suggested forming a not-for-profit cooperative using model rules - my favourite, but some people flat-out objected; 4. Joshua has directed LibLime to draft paperwork and register as a non-profit, but I don't think we've seen the draft yet - I feel this underestimates the amount of work in operating a non-profit, but I'm willing to help with it and hope we can involve the wider community. Hope that explains, -- MJ Ray (slef). LMS developer and supporter for a small, friendly worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation? Is it simply filling out
Some well known free applications (Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, Gnome) have their own foundations (Mozilla, Gnome and Apache Foundation) These organizations can be taken as an example to the Koha Foundation. Zeki Celikbas Istanbul Technical University Alinti Lenora Oftedahl <OFTL@critfc.org>
So, how do we start a Koha Foundation? Is it simply filling out paperwork and registering as a non-profit? I'll be happy to start looking into this and talking with a lawyer I know who might be willing to give free advice.
Lenora StreamNet Regional Librarian Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission http://www.fishlib.org
Rachel Hamilton-Williams <rachel@katipo.co.nz> 5/10/2009 4:24 PM >>>
Joann Ransom wrote:
Can someone please help me understand what this statement at the bottom of the new Koha website means for the Koha community:
"The Koha -- Open Source Library System is © 1999-2009 by LibLime & the Koha Development Team
Koha^® and the Koha logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of LibLime <http://new.koha.org/liblime.com> and BibLibre <http://biblibre.com> in the United States, France and other countries. Distributed under the GNU GPL license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/>." It means just what it says. I believe that individual contributors retain copyright of their particular "bits" of the work that go into "koha", which is who the "koha development team" are. Listing them all would be a bit cumbersome, and I think Liblime are the majority copyright holder at the moment. It's a little bit of a hangover from when Katipo ran the site - we had a similar statement. We haven't had a
"body" to assign our copyrights too, so they are still owned by the people who wrote them.
Various important names and trademarks have bee registered by some companies usually in their local jurisdictions to make sure they are held by someone within the Koha community.
Both Liblime & BibLibre have said they'll assign those assets to a koha foundation when one eventuates, but of course we have to have a legal body who can "hold" them before they can be assigned.
Cheers Rachel
Thanks,
Jo. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- ----------------------------- Rachel Hamilton-Williams General Manager Katipo Communications Ltd
Phone: +64-4-934 1285 Mobile: 021 389 128 E-mail: rachel@katipo.co.nz Web: www.katipo.co.nz
_______________________________________________ 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
participants (8)
-
celikbas＠itu.edu.tr -
Chris Cormack -
gsl -
Joann Ransom -
Lenora Oftedahl -
MJ Ray -
Owen Leonard -
Rachel Hamilton-Williams