[Koha] First things first for a Koha foundation

[Chris Nighswonger]

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Thomas Dukleth <kohalist at agogme.com> wrote:

> An independent foundation now choice for which the majority voted in the
> first poll perhaps without understanding the question or implication well
> would delay matters because of all the discussion about bylaws and other
> matters needed and which ought to occur before registering.  [There were
> some problems with the design of the first poll which we should fix in
> future by having wide community discussion of the drafting of any poll.]
> Registering an independent entity with the government is easy and may take
> little more than a couple of weeks.  More weeks may be required to obtain
> certification of non-profit status.  Yet before all that one has to know
> all the particulars of the registration and decide in what jurisdiction it
> should be registered primarily which may take months to agree.
>
>
Agreed. We need to have the long-term goal of our own
<your-favorite-organizational-term-goes-here>. But we need to deal with the
present emergency *now* if not sooner.

I favour HLT because of their greater flexibility and commitment to the
> Koha project from its very inception.  SPI has much better governance
> rules which we could discuss adopting or adapting for ourselves as an
> organisation held by another organisation and later as an independent
> organisation.  HLT's charter grants them perhaps a little too much
> flexibility and the Koha community should expect a legal guarantee from
> them to take on the full trust of the community.  They have demonstrated
> over the years their complete willingness to not try to exert any undue
> influence on the project for any private interests of their library.
> Combining that implicit trust with a guarantee for the Koha community
> gives me great confidence.
>
>
HLT appears to me to strike the absolute best balance for the immediate
crisis. And they have already expressed their willingness to help. Without
speaking for them, I would imagine they would be amiable to providing
whatever assurances the community might desire as its long-term
expectations.



> When we have ourselves properly organised, then we can make requests of
> LibLime from a position of strength as a community prepared to offer an
> alternative if LibLime is disinclined to cooperate.  Presently, with
> LibLime in control of the community domain and no official community
> alternative to offer any request is made from a position of weakness.
>

Again, agreed. At this point we need to separate the objective issues with
LibLime from the more subjective ones and then allow the resulting
organization to deal with those from a position of legal strength. It's the
old "divided we fall" issue.


I think further delay will only bring further chaos and weakness to our
position as a community and will undoubtedly strengthen the hand of LibLime
when it comes to the objective issues.

Rather than continuing with discussion ad infinitum and ad nauseum (it's
been how many years in discussion now?), we need to put our selection of
choices to a vote and move on.

Kind Regards,
Chris
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