[Koha] About the Koha name (and koha.org.ve)

José Miguel Parrella Romero joseparrella at gmail.com
Fri Mar 16 20:39:30 NZDT 2007


Greetings,

A few weeks ago a librarian and I bought and set up the koha.org.ve 
domain (which is now down for maintenance) where we would like to host 
several library-related open source developments. Plans include:

* Koha, and a Koha test installation in spanish, with a particular 
template. Source code fully downloadable.

* Local templates (with effects as in jQuery) and spanish translations 
(we've used the ones already distributed with Koha, but they need to be 
further adapted for the Venezuelan reality, for example we don't call 
users "Socios", which means "Member" (as in a "Club Member") but instead 
we call them "Usuarios" (users) -- fully downloadable as FOSS.

* Maybe a Koha-based ILS which uses AJAX (we're working on it) or a 
Koha-inspired ILS which is Catalyst-based (that's a future plan) They 
will be fully downloadable as soon as we have nice code to share.

* Other library-related developments, such as Keystone/Greenstone. They 
will be considered "evaluation technologies".

* Hopefully, documentation, in forms of reports, formal documentation 
(maybe DocBook-based) and presentations. Everything downloadable as free 
software.

* Contact information for both my partner and I as well as any other 
person in Venezuela which works with Koha and would like to be cited in 
the webpage as a "support option".

* It will be cited as a Koha Interest Group for Venezuela.

* It will host a mailing list for spanish-speaking Koha users. Bugs or 
suggestions will be shared with the english-speaking mailing lists, as 
well as the bug tracker.

The site will be a little like koha-fr.org, but it will also host some 
non-Koha related stuff (though this may very well be off-webpage, for 
example in mailing lists or subdomains or a SVN server) -- I would also 
like to clarify that our plan is to stay _fully_ cooperative with 
current Koha developments and the current Koha namespace. I've already 
contacted with Tina Burger from LibLime in order to give some ideas and 
material for the webpage.

Finally, I would like to know if using koha.org.ve seems sane for this. 
I'd be really worried if we either infringe a trademark (however, Koha 
is not registered as a trademark in Venezuela, and most likely it won't 
-- the Patents and Trademarks Office has a very strong policy about 
FOSS-related trademarks, even when it breaks international treaties... 
yes, we're an outlaw country :D) but I'd be most worried if this raises 
any undesirable reaction in our community. Please let me know your 
opinions if you're interested in doing so.

Thank you very much and have a nice day,
Jose


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