[Koha] From the Kaitiaki

[Pat Eyler]

                                                   5 July, 2002
To the Koha community;

hello,

This week, we've got something to celebrate!  Yesterday was the day we
celebrate our Independence in the United States.  I think that we're
well on our way to declaring our independence from proprietary library
systems.  Koha is moving along nicely, and it seems that other porjects
that dovetail nicely with ours are doing well to.

   1.2
     1.2.1 hit the streets yesterday.  It included improvements to the
     installer, the inclusion of sample data (for testing),
     improvements in the Z39.50 system, and a number of bugfixes.

     Chris has plans for more improvements in the 1.2 series, but we'd
     encourage you to install 1.2.1 instead of waiting.  The newer
     1.2 releases will be a very simple upgrade from your existing
     systems, which means less pain for you.  Getting involved in 1.2
     now means that you'll have the opportunity to help steer the
     project through your input, which means more gain for you.  Less
     pain and more gain is a win all the way around.

   Translations
     This is the first note that will be translated (as far as I
     know).  I'm looking forward to seeing a whole new group becoming
     involved in Koha as each set of translations starts up.  If
     you're interested in translating this or other Koha documents,
     please get in touch with me (<kaitiaki at koha.org>) to find out if
     anyone else is working in your language already.

   Community
     We've had another Koha support vendor start up this week, this
     time in Nigeria.  Beyond this, we're starting to talk in more
     detail with librarians about helping to steer the project.

     Two big developments outside the Koha project are worth noting:
       * the MARC::Record project has released version 1.00 of their
         software.  This is a big step for them, and represents a
	 major win for the larger free software for libraries
	 community.
       * a new project is starting up to develop a SIP and NCIP module
         for Perl.  This project is already talking to some Koha
	 developers as well as the people in the MyLibrary
	 project.

     We're already using MARC::Record in our 1.4 development, and are
     looking forward to having SIP/NCIP tools that we can merge into
     Koha as well.  Projects like this are a great boon to us and to
     other library projects.  I'd encourage anyone with the skills and
     interest to support worthy projects like this in any way you can.

     A project is underway to start developing a larger organization
     to help coordinate work within free software for library
     projects.  As more information develops, I'll share it here.

Koha is continuing to build momentum and the community is growing as
well.  This really is your chance to get in on the ground floor of an
exciting new endeavor.  Whether you choose to get involved in Koha,
MyLibrary, MARC::Record, the new SIP/NCIP project, or some other Free
Software project doesn't matter, what matters is that you get
involved.  You can write code if you're able, write documentation if
you're up to it, or test new software releases if you have the
hardware.   There are a lot of ways that you can get involved, the
important thing is that you do.

happy hacking,
-pate


Pat Eyler
Kaitiaki of the Koha Project