[Koha] Koha releases

[Stacy Pober]

Owen Leonard <oleonard at myacpl.org> wrote:
>I certainly hope PTFS will not
> release an update to Harley. I would hope their efforts are being put
> into integrating it into the real Koha instead.

A few days ago, at the Liblime Users Group meeting held at the ALA
conference, customers  were told that LibLime plans to merge Harley
and LEK (Liblime Enterprise Koha) at some point in the future.   I
don't recall hearing any specific timeline for that.

Liblime also displayed a policy document regarding code release of
their software.  I think they said it was on their website, but I
can't find it right now.  I just emailed them for a link or copy of
it, but for now I'll give you a summary based on my memory of what was
shown..  AIR, the policy says that sponsored software featureswill go
through a testing cycle with the sponsoring organization, then will be
released to other Liblime customers for six months.  After that, the
code will be released to the larger Koha world.

As I understand it, most of the enhancements sponsored by one of the
customer groups (the group sponsoring most of LEK features, I think)
are currently contractually defined as a single project rather than
individual enhancements.  So until the full "bundle" of enhancements
goes through the full process of testing and deployment to the other
LEK customers, no part of it will be released.  After the "Phase I"
project is finished, which is scheduled for the end of 2010, then
those enhancements will be released to other LEK users, so if there is
a release of that code, it is unlikely to be prior to the middle or
end of 2011.   That date assumes that the project finishes on time. I
believe the original date for the end of Phase one was summer, 2009,
so this schedule may be overly optimistic.

Since the "phase I" includes a large number of features, I asked in
the meeting  how long they thought it would take for those  to be
integrated into the official community version of Koha.  The estimate
I was given was  four to five years.

I must admit I don't really fully understand the process in which
sponsored enhancements are integrated into the official Koha software.
 Is an evaluation done for sponsored features before they are
integrated into the software?  I would think the programmers involved
in each release would want to evaluate them to see whether they in
fact are improvements over the either the current software or whether
another feature supplied by a different support vendor may accomplish
the same functionality in a better way.   If such evaluation is done,
who does it?

We have had at least one instance when we were told that a feature of
official Koha would have to be sacrificed in order for a LEK feature
to work correctly.  I don't know whether that is going to be a common
issue, but I assume that within the official Koha project, there  is
some decision-making protocol for deciding whether a new feature is
worth  more than the existing feature that it disables or worth
integrating at all if there is an existing feature developed elsewhere
that adds the same functionality.

-- 
Stacy Pober
Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Library
Riverdale, NY 10471
stacy.pober at manhattan.edu