[Koha] Support for Koha

[Chris Cormack]

2009/8/9 Darrell UIlm <darrellulm at smfpl.org>:
> Krishnan M <kmlist at ...> writes:
>
>> But the carefree winds that once fanned the free flow of ideas, the plentiful
> showers that nourished the soil, the rivers that brought it prosperity, and the
> abundant sunshine that provided energy soon decided to shun those parts that lay
> within the fence. The goodwill of the many failed to reach the people inside the
> fence, not that it was ever withheld...
>>
>> Slowly, the land within became barren, ..., and failed...
>>
>
> This sounds like RedHat Linux? Right!?

No, not really at all.
>
> Ask yourselves, would Linux be where it is without RedHat?
>
> And, of course, if you do not care for RedHat, do what I do, use CentOS. It is
> *very* stable - and free! The stability would not be there without RedHat, and
> it would not be honest to say CentOS is possible without RedHat.
>
> IBM has been a big player with Linux. The large corporate sponsorships are
> important if a project is going to mature.
>
> While 20 years ago I would have agreed that corporations should stay out of
> anything DIY (open source), now I can say that corporate sponsorships and grants
> are why many open source projects are actually good.
>
> We aren't talking about some romantic poetic notion here - like the meaning of
> life. We are talking about software which when you look at it, is basically a
> type of machine, an invention.
>
> And without proper backing, all ideas eventually end up as footnotes in the
> lists of all possible inventions.
>
I think you have totally misread Krishnan's email, nowhere does it say
that commercial interests are bad, or that everyone who works should
be a volunteer. It says that walling yourself off from the community
and the other people doing the same thing as you is a bad idea.

If you had sent this email as a stand alone, I would have agreed with
nearly every part of it, and I still do agree with most of the
content, but to contend that Krishnan was trying to say that there
should be no commercial interests involved with Koha is just totally
missing the point. He was saying that being part of the community is
better than locking yourself off.

Chris