[Koha] LibLime Thoughts from a Librarian

[Lori Ayre]

Lee,

Both Equinox and ByWater Solutions have migrated libraries off of the
Liblime Enterprise Koha onto the community version quite successfully.
 So that is certainly an option.  I think it isn't the end of the
world to have LEK as an option for some libraries, but if it were me,
I'd be pushing PTFS to get more with the community norms.  Seems like
that is what is happening, ultimately, despite the breakdown in
communication and other PR mistakes (IMHO) that have been made on the
LL/PTFS side.

Lori Ayre

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Lee Phillips
<lphillips at buttepubliclibrary.info> wrote:
> Koha Friends,
> We are a Koha library and I am just a librarian. We migrated with
> LibLime in 9/09 and I was one of LL's biggest fans. One of the things LL
> did right was allow libraries to decide for themselves on install and
> config issues. We are self-hosted (thank God, in hindsight) and we have
> customized a little. We liked having developers that we could go to to
> get our needs met for our installation and contributed our
> customizations (Overdrive SIP) to the community (except it is in the
> manual on Koha.org. I think).
>  When the craziness started almost a year ago I was sad to see
> something with such potential crash and burn (LL and Koha-Community). It
> made me physically ill.
> Now we have PTFS. I guess the  money is in  creating one hosted product
> with one solution so that it is economical to manage in "the cloud". I
> am sure other librarians feel as I do that I like having my "stuff" on
> this box right here (pointing under desk). I won't even presume to
> understand the complexities of "taking Koha to the next level" in the
> PTFS world but it is a different animal with  the same genus as Koha -
> Community. As Nicole Engard tweeted, it is not even the same concept of
> Open Source.
>
>  I will take the higher ground and say I wish PTFS well as they create
> some hybrid version of Koha (forked code). Librarians stake their
> careers on the concept of free information and universal access to the
> information. Open Source = universal access to information for me. Maybe
> the community should start thinking of a way to help those who thought
> they were getting FOSS Koha migrate out of LEK and Koha Express. Maybe a
> vendor could provide that service? I can tell you if I was in their
> shoes that's what I would be looking to do. I am just saying, its not
> enough to just move on as the community. There are some casualties from
> this deal and I hope some one offers a solution to help them back to
> where they thought they would be, a part of the Koha-community. I am
> glad (tickled pink actually) my library is part of the community.
> Cheers and see ya in NZ!
> Beer and Pizza on me.
> Lee Phillips
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>