Re: [Koha] PTFS Koha Community Support and the Koha.org Website
Hi John, It is good to hear from you.
As you know, PTFS acquired LibLime and is integrating the LibLime operation into our existing open source software business unit. With this acquisition, PTFS inherited quite a few tasks, all to be performed simultaneously, and our work is not near complete. However, we want to increase our involvement within the community now, at this early phase of the transition.
We all appreciate the incredibly complex task of merging two companies. No doubt this task is greatly complicated by PTFS being fairly new to the FOSS concept as well.
As promised, PTFS will continue to support the Koha open source community. We understand that the http://koha-community.org/ website was set up as a temporary measure before our purchase of LibLime, out of concerns that the content of koha.org was out of date and was not under the control of official members of the community. To resolve this issue PTFS would like help in updating and supporting koha.org.
The time for updating and supporting koha.org as an independent site is past. There is nothing else to be said in that regard. One of the very issues that PTFS appears to be concerned about is at stake here: instability in governance. Make no mistake. There is no instability here. To move "back" to koha.org would indeed be a sign of instability and indecision on the community's part. We have learned a hard and sorrowful lesson in the trust betrayed by LibLime and its former management. Surely you understand the need of ensuring that never again can a single for-profit interest threaten the existence of Koha. The clearest and best indication that PTFS is willing and desirous to participate in the Koha community on the common ground of the term set forth by the community would be to turn all Koha related assets over to the community appointed trustee HLT. You would be surprised what a grateful response this would receive from the community *as well as* many of the former LibLime customers.
PTFS looks forward to continuing our work with the community to mutually advance the goal of producing the world’s best open source ILS system that can truly go head-to-head with the legacy proprietary systems.
PTFS has a wonderful opportunity at this point in its own history and that of Koha. Furthermore, PTFS stands a good chance of wide acceptance in the Koha community if it chooses to enter the community on the terms common to all who come this way: those set forth by the community. To my knowledge, no one has shunned, belittled, ostracized, or otherwise discriminated (to use a currently politically hot term) against either of the two PTFS developers who regularly frequent the list and irc channel. To the contrary, many of us have invested our *valuable* time FREE OF CHARGE to assist them in issue directly related to PTFS client work. To this degree and further, PTFS has received invaluable benefit from this community. In return we are only asking that PTFS be honorable and transparent in its dealings with the community. Let's leave the smoke and mirrors to the politicians. I am personally looking forward to greater involvement of PTFS in the Koha community. I have enjoyed interaction with the two PTFS employees who are currently involved and appreciate their valuable contributions to the community as well. Kind Regards, Chris Nighswonger Koha 3.2 Release Maintainer
Hi All I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes. I agree with what the others before me have said. http://koha-community.org is the preferred option until the koha.org domain is placed in trust for the community with community designated organisation, Horowhenua Library Trust, holding it. Liz at NEKLS has done a fantastic job of setting the site up, it is open, collaborative and is fast becoming an invaluable resource for the community. Even were the koha.org domain returned to community control, my vote would be to point it at the koha-community.org site. So that's my position on the issue. Chris
Hi all, Yes I have been asked as well, and my response remains exactly as it was when I answered Kelly's original post last week: " I wonder if a better, more collegial approach, might be to redirect koha.org to the community site: koha-community.org." I do believe this to be a better approach than going to head to head with the Koha global community by resurrecting the old site in competition with the new koha-community.org site which is working splendidly and which is available to the entire community in terms of adding and editing content. Cheers Jo. PS For the record, in case anyone is wondering, the HLT Koha Committee has written twice inviting PTFS to discuss the Koha community assets including koha.org and have yet to be acknowledged by PTFS. Chris Cormack wrote:
Hi All
I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes.
I agree with what the others before me have said. http://koha-community.org is the preferred option until the koha.org domain is placed in trust for the community with community designated organisation, Horowhenua Library Trust, holding it.
Liz at NEKLS has done a fantastic job of setting the site up, it is open, collaborative and is fast becoming an invaluable resource for the community. Even were the koha.org domain returned to community control, my vote would be to point it at the koha-community.org site.
So that's my position on the issue.
Chris _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Hi all, Yes I have been asked as well, and my response remains exactly as it was when I answered Kelly's original post last week: " I wonder if a better, more collegial approach, might be to redirect koha.org to the community site: koha-community.org." I do believe this to be a better approach than going to head to head with the Koha global community by resurrecting the old site in competition with the new koha-community.org site which is working splendidly and which is available to the entire community in terms of adding and editing content. Cheers Jo. PS For the record, in case anyone is wondering, the HLT Koha Committee has written twice inviting PTFS to discuss the Koha community assets including koha.org and have yet to be acknowledged by PTFS. Chris Cormack wrote:
Hi All
I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes.
I agree with what the others before me have said. http://koha-community.org is the preferred option until the koha.org domain is placed in trust for the community with community designated organisation, Horowhenua Library Trust, holding it.
Liz at NEKLS has done a fantastic job of setting the site up, it is open, collaborative and is fast becoming an invaluable resource for the community. Even were the koha.org domain returned to community control, my vote would be to point it at the koha-community.org site.
So that's my position on the issue.
Chris _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Le 26/04/2010 04:56, Chris Cormack a écrit :
Hi All
I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes.
Same for me, so same for me : I fully agree with what other said. Sometimes I would write it with different words, but the idea is here : the wordpress koha-community.org is easy to use, community & not-for-profit driven, so it's where the "koha community" must go. Please give control over koha.org to HLT, and that will solve the debate. PS : Chris Nighswonger: wonderfull mail ! -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08
Hi, On Apr 25, 2010, at 10:56 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes.
Likewise.
I agree with what the others before me have said. http://koha-community.org is the preferred option until the koha.org domain is placed in trust for the community with community designated organisation, Horowhenua Library Trust, holding it.
Liz at NEKLS has done a fantastic job of setting the site up, it is open, collaborative and is fast becoming an invaluable resource for the community. Even were the koha.org domain returned to community control, my vote would be to point it at the koha-community.org site.
That is my position as well. koha-community.org and its various sub-sites represent a number of positive developments. The new website has gone well past the point where it is merely a reaction to LibLime's prior management of koha.org. The positive changes include: [1] With the assumption of oversight of the koha-community.org domain by the Horowhenua Library Trust, establishing the principle that Koha project assets can and are best held in trust by a non-profit organization and one that is directly answerable to a library. [2] Establishing a new content management system for the new website, and, more importantly, setting up the website so that anybody in the world with Koha content to add to it can easily and quickly get an account. I join Chris in thanking Liz Rea, NEKLS, and Kansas Libraries on the Web for doing a wonderful job setting it up. [3] Establishing ways for Koha contributors, commercial firms and nonprofits alike, to each contribute by providing services for part of the web and email infrastructure of koha.org. This has a number of benefits to the community, including the ability to set up redundant mirrors and inherent fault tolerance (if a particular sub-site's ISP has issues, that won't bring all of koha-community.org down). Along the same lines, if an entity for whatever reason no longer wishes to maintain part of the website, the task can be readily transferred to another host. This also has an important symbolic value: it shows that mutual cooperation can achieve great things for the Koha project. It also ensures that no one vendor can lay claim the the Koha project - and to be frank, the Koha community is not likely to ever permit that to happen. [4] Re-establishing the principle that system administration of Koha websites be done by any and all qualified Koha community members who have time and a desire to help. What does this mean for PTFS? I invite you to join the collaboration. While I join with the rest of the HLT Koha Subcommittee in urging you to point koha.org to koha-community.org and transfer the domain to the HLT, PTFS can still keep its hand in things in several ways: * By requesting and receiving editing access to the koha-community.org website. * By continuing to host one or more of the extant sub-sites, provided that this is done in a way as to allow other interested community members to participate in maintaining the services. This is an unparalleled opportunity for PTFS and the Koha community. If you agree to join with us in an open, transparent discussion of the issues and to commit to cooperating with the global Koha community, we can collectively resolve historical issues and get back to work on producing great software for libraries and their patrons. Furthermore, I can guarantee that if PTFS joins with the Koha community, your firm will enjoy a tremendous amount of goodwill, one that will translate quite directly to dollars and cents and which will help ease the process of folding LibLime into your operations. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton VP, Data Services Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source email: gmc@esilibrary.com direct: +1 352-215-7548 skype: gmcharlt web: http://www.esilibrary.com/
Galen Charlton (and others) have suggested that PTFS simply:
point koha.org to koha-community.org
While I agree that this would be a welcome gesture of faith in the community, it should be noted that there is still important content on koha.org that is not yet available on koha-community.org (namely the 3.0 manual, and I am not sure what else). It would be nice if that sort of thing were resolved before any wildcard redirection of the domain name was implemented. -- Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator South Central Library System (SCLS) <gregb at scls.lib.wi.us>, (608) 242-4716
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 9:19 AM, Greg Barniskis <gregb@scls.lib.wi.us> wrote:
Galen Charlton (and others) have suggested that PTFS simply:
point koha.org to koha-community.org
While I agree that this would be a welcome gesture of faith in the community, it should be noted that there is still important content on koha.org that is not yet available on koha-community.org (namely the 3.0 manual, and I am not sure what else).
The contents of the 3.0 manual are not on koha-community.org because the copyright to that content is held by LibLime (and now PTFS). PTFS would need to release the 3.0 manual under some kind of open license in order for us to be able to reproduce it. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
participants (7)
-
Chris Cormack -
Christopher Nighswonger -
Galen Charlton -
Greg Barniskis -
Joann Ransom -
Owen Leonard -
Paul Poulain