[Koha] PTFS Koha Community Support and the Koha.org Website

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On Apr 25, 2010, at 10:56 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
> I have been asked offlist by PTFS to respond to this email, so here goes.

Likewise.

> I agree with what the others before me have said.
> http://koha-community.org is the preferred option until the koha.org
> domain is placed in trust for the community with community designated
> organisation, Horowhenua Library Trust, holding it.
> 
> Liz at NEKLS has done a fantastic job of setting the site up, it is
> open, collaborative and is fast becoming an invaluable resource for
> the community. Even were the koha.org domain returned to community
> control, my vote would be to point it at the koha-community.org site.

That is my position as well.  koha-community.org and its various sub-sites represent a number of positive developments.  The new website has gone well past the point where it is merely a reaction to LibLime's prior management of koha.org.  The positive changes include:

[1] With the assumption of oversight of the koha-community.org domain by the Horowhenua Library Trust, establishing the principle that Koha project assets can and are best held in trust by a non-profit organization and one that is directly answerable to a library.
 
[2] Establishing a new content management system for the new website, and, more importantly, setting up the website so that anybody in the world with Koha content to add to it can easily and quickly get an account.  I join Chris in thanking Liz Rea, NEKLS, and Kansas Libraries on the Web for doing a wonderful job setting it up.

[3] Establishing ways for Koha contributors, commercial firms and nonprofits alike, to each contribute by providing services for part of the web and email infrastructure of koha.org.  This has a number of benefits to the community, including the ability to set up redundant mirrors and inherent fault tolerance (if a particular sub-site's ISP has issues, that won't bring all of koha-community.org down).  Along the same lines, if an entity for whatever reason no longer wishes to maintain part of the website, the task can be readily transferred to another host.  This also has an important symbolic value: it shows that mutual cooperation can achieve great things for the Koha project.  It also ensures that no one vendor can lay claim the the Koha project - and to be frank, the Koha community is not likely to ever permit that to happen.  

[4] Re-establishing the principle that system administration of Koha websites be done by any and all qualified Koha community members who have time and a desire to help.

What does this mean for PTFS?  I invite you to join the collaboration.  While I join with the rest of the HLT Koha Subcommittee in urging you to point koha.org to koha-community.org and transfer the domain to the HLT, PTFS can still keep its hand in things in several ways:

* By requesting and receiving editing access to the koha-community.org website.
* By continuing to host one or more of the extant sub-sites, provided that this is done in a way as to allow other interested community members to participate in maintaining the services.

This is an unparalleled opportunity for PTFS and the Koha community.  If you agree to join with us in an open, transparent discussion of the issues and to commit to cooperating with the global Koha community, we can collectively resolve historical issues and get back to work on producing great software for libraries and their patrons.  Furthermore, I can guarantee that if PTFS joins with the Koha community, your firm will enjoy a tremendous amount of goodwill, one that will translate quite directly to dollars and cents and which will help ease the process of folding LibLime into your operations.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
VP, Data Services
Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
direct: +1 352-215-7548
skype:  gmcharlt
web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/