[Koha] whatis kohaclone, C4, and HEAD

[Chris Nighswonger]

Hi Nelson,

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 10:03 AM, Nelson Fredsell (nelsonf)
<nfredsell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> As I slowly look under the hood of our koha installation I end up with many
> questions floating over my head. I am sure that this only happens to me :-).

Welcome to the club. ;-)

> Anyway, I am creating a cheat sheet that references all the directories that
> relate directly to koha, on my server.  Today I am particularly interested
> to know the purpose of /opt/kohaclone/..  and /opt/kohaclone/C4/..

This is most likely a clone of the main Koha git repo. See
http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:git_usage for more
information.

(I also
> see /usr/share/koha/lib/C4/..)  Perhaps kohaclone is a mirror of some sort -
> which makes me wonder what process initiates the mirror, eg. cron, and why I
> need this mirror.

C4 contains the perl modules (libs) unique to Koha. This instance of
C4 is the one being used by your live Koha. It results from selecting
a 'standard' install when running Makefile.PL.

>
> I once read that C4 related to work the kiwis were doing long ago, during
> early development years, and has some humor attached.  In 2010, it seems
> that C4 continues to be central to the program, but I'd  like to know how it
> relates to the rest of the Koha progam.

C4 is the name given to a very powerful plastic explosive. Also, see above.

>
> Finally, what does HEAD mean, and where can I find it?  I think it has
> something to do with the git versioning system used by developers to
> collectively keep track of improvements and bugfixes...  I've seen the folks
> on IRC use this term.  I would guess that HEAD means the most current stable
> branch of the software program.  Could you have a HEAD for 3.0.x and HEAD
> for 3.2.x?  Here -- http://git.koha.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=Koha;a=summary
> -- I find multiple HEADS, but I presume that the "master" head may be the
> one typically referenced.

HEAD in a general context references the current bleeding edge of Koha
code in the main repo (master, as you guessed).

It is *not* considered stable and it is *not* recommended for use in
production unless you really understand the potential issues.

The current stable Koha is the 3.0.x branch.
http://git.koha.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=Koha;a=shortlog;h=3.0.x

>
> For those of you still reading this epistle, today I discovered that a
> searchable! public log exists for the #koha IRC:
> http://stats.workbuffer.org/irclog/koha/today.  Yet another mine of Koha
> information...

Yup, you can search the lists as well: http://old.nabble.com/Koha-f14380.html

And checkout the formal documentation as well:
http://koha-community.org/documentation/

Welcome aboard, and feel free to ask all the questions you like.

Kind Regards,
Chris