[Koha] Support for Koha

Weinheimer Jim j.weinheimer at aur.edu
Tue Aug 4 20:19:33 NZST 2009


This has been an enlightening thread concerning the nature of open source. Open source is still a relatively new business model that has a few bumps in the road and certain misunderstandings, including some misunderstandings of my own. I found this article in ComputerWorld very useful to get a better grasp of both sides of the issue that I would like to suggest to others: "Does the open-source development model work for business users? By Todd R. Weiss March 5, 2008" http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9066615&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top

First, I am one of those koha users who has used the open source version for several years. I guess I can be called a developer even though I haven't participated in anything because I have concentrated on improving my own koha catalog to make it do what I want. Since I lack a lot of the "higher" computing abilities, I rely on a colleague who is very interested in Linux and Perl. We also run our own "server" (actually, a spare, very small and weak computer that nobody else on campus wanted).

For me, the main point of the open source model is that I can make the system work the way I think it should so as to help my patrons in the ways I think are best. It doesn't mean that I am right, but I can try things out. So far, it has worked pretty well for me. Because it's open source, I can provide certain functions available in no other catalogs. This may mean including javascripts or style sheets or whatever, without having to ask the owners of the software for permission, or having to wait for them to get around to it. I can just try something, see if it works or not, correct any problems, and I can always "tweak" things to make them better. This allows for a freedom that libraries who subscribe to proprietary catalogs do not have, since they have to wait for the company to get around to it and then, take whatever they get. So for me, if I or a student or faculty member has an idea, I can try it out immediately, we can see if it works at all, where the problems lie, and fix them. Intellectually, it can be quite exciting!

To me, this is the real promise of open source. It isn't so much saving money (although my institution has saved a lot); open source means *developing* tools that people can use. I emphasize "developing" because the tools will never be finished. I think this is a 180 degree change from the normal idea of instituting a library catalog, which is seen as having to learn yet another fixed machine, where you will hear questions such as: "How do I do ...?" "How do you search ...?"  

With open source, the discussions are (or should be) more like, "I'd like to ..." "How about ...." or "I hate the way this works, let's try ..."

Sometimes we have problems that a host company would solve. For example, we have in the past year been deluged by referrer spam from porn sites that blow out the log files (since the server we use is so small), and my IT colleague and I have had to come up with some innovative ideas to solve the issues. But we did, and it was an interesting exercise.

I have been one of those bad open source user/developers since I have not contributed my code to the general community. This isn't because I want to keep it to myself--quite the opposite, but I simply run out of time and energy to do so. Still, there have been a couple of libraries where I have shared privately and I like to think I have helped. Now that I have gained some (rather painful!) experience, I am trying to modularize my additions and in this way perhaps I can participate a bit more.

I want to give three cheers for LibLime, who has been so important in the development of Koha and to Joshua himself for such untiring commitment to it. Without that commitment, I am sure that Koha would be much poorer today and therefore, much less used and with far less of a future.

James (Jim) Weinheimer
Director of Library and Information Services
The American University of Rome
Rome, Italy



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