[Koha-devel]+[Koha] The Rather Anxious Feature Requestor and various OT stuff

[Christopher Hicks]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, paul POULAIN wrote:
> 100% agree with christopher.

Thanks (And me too! :)

> What's not nice with Libre software is that you may sometimes have to 
> wait for a feature.

This "not nice" really isn't any worse than commercial software.  Plus,
the worst case wait for commercial software is more often reached than
with "libre" software -- there have been many more times when I've been
told by a commercial software vendor that there's no chance in heck of my
feature being added or my bug being fixed before the heat death of the
universe.  This was SCO's standard answer to my questions at one time
despite the fact that the company I was consulting for was selling
hundreds of copies of their software annually and had upgraded legions of
folks from Xenix to UNIX.  "You don't need reliable signals...just reboot
the box occasionally."  Ugh.  My client switched all of those servers to
Linux completely five years ago.  For some reason they didn't need to
spend $50k on a support contract with SCO anymore.  Bru-hahaha.  I only
wish I had a few other clients I could convert right now in protest.  Oh
well.  So, waiting for things here is going to be far less painful than if
you needed to wait on commercial library automation vendors.

To the original feature requestor: Maybe you should go to your board of
directors and seek guidance - wait 6 months (don't quote me on that
figure) or spend $25k (or that one) for a commercial package that's
available for immediate gratification.  If they want to spend the money
for immediate gratification then maybe that's the best solution for you.  
In a year or so when Koha is further along you can import your data via
MARC and migrate your users to avoid being stuck with maintenance fees
forever.  Consider my favorite sig line, bar none: "Free software isn't
free, but expensive software is expensive."  :)

> What's nice with Libre software is that if you don't want to wait you 
> can do it yourself or fund it (if you want to fund this feature, feel 
> free to ask. I'm sure I won't be the only volunteer...)

No kidding.  I've seen a number of folks ask kindly enough times for 
somebody with perl credentials to take care of things for them without any 
funding whatsoever.  I've also had clients that were so desperate for a 
feature they were willing to pay me to add it.  It works many different 
ways because these opportunities aren't artificially impossible because of 
bogus licensing.

> PS : some ppl in France says that "Libre software" is often used in
> english countries to avoid the "free" mistake (like free speach, not
> free beer). Is it true ?

"Often" would be an overstatement.  I can't speak for Australia or the UK,
but for North America it's definitely not used often.  Some do use it, but
I doubt anyone outside of the dedicated core of open source hackers would
realize what you meant without explanation.  None of my clients or their
technical staff would have any idea what you meant.  So it doesn't seem to
me that within a broad context you would be gaining any clarity by using
the term on random American geeks.  Still, I'm fond of the usage since I'm
a die-hard francophile.  (I live 10 minutes from where the French
blockaded the British at Yorktown and I've done consulting in France.)  
The term "open source" was coined to avoid some of this confusion and I'd
say the open source usage is dominating in the US.

-- 
</chris>

Programming is a Dark Art, and it will always be. The programmer is
fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe:
entropy and human stupidity. They're not things you can always
overcome with a "methodology" or on a schedule.
		-Damian Conway, Perl God