[Koha] Koha (was Introduction - Sean McIntyre)

Sun May 16 23:23:05 NZST 2010

I too extend a sincere welcome to Sean.  I've been greatly encouraged by the
release of code in Harley and by Sean's sincere words to the list.  

Nonetheless an aspect of the discussion has heightened my overall concerns.
I had not visited koha.org for some time.  I did so today to follow up the
discussion between Sean and Chris N.  What has been published there is
disappointing to say the least.

First, there is no such thing as Community Koha.  There is Koha.  And there
is Liblime's closed source fork.  (Though enough has been written on and off
this list to confirm that Liblime's customers should simply demand delivery
of the source code.  If that were refused, copyright holders of the software
being distributed by Liblime can assert their rights.  There are quite a
number of people in a position to do that.)

Secondly, the site unambiguously encourages libraries to download Harley as
though it is something superior to Koha.  What is the future upgrade path
for libraries that adopt it?

Whilst these, the insulting and incorrect post to koha-community.org (April
30) and the NZ trademark application remain in place, the motives of Sean's
organisation remain very much in question.

Bob Birchall
CALYX

> -----Original Message-----
> From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz
[mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On
> Behalf Of Joann Ransom
> Sent: Sunday, 16 May 2010 12:23 PM
> To: smcintyre at ptfs.com; Koha Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Koha] Koha (was Introduction - Sean McIntyre)
> 
> Hi Sean,
> 
> I'd like to add my welcome to that of the others. Your words are very
> reassuring and I am heartened by the discussion which has followed.
> 
> I look forward greatly to seeing LEK and Harley integrated back into
> Koha and the community going from strength to strength. NIce to have
> you on board and communicating so openly. It would be great if PTFS
> could get a few people down to KohaCon10. Would be an excellent
> opportunity and its only 12 hours flying time from LA - its not really
> the ends of the earth!
> 
> Cheers Jo.
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 12:59 AM, Christopher Nighswonger
> <chris.nighswonger at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for the thoughtful and constructive response, Sean.
> >
> > On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 7:38 AM, Sean McIntyre <smcintyre at ptfs.com>
wrote:
> >> So if I understand your first paragraph, the confusion was created when
we
> >> made available a "flavor" for download, rather than just submitting
changes
> >> back to the community elected release manager.  Did I understand that
> >> correctly?
> >
> > For the most part, yes. I was not suggesting that you not publish your
> > code base at all: only that the method of maintaining a public git
> > repo and making submissions to the current release manager is and has
> > been the modus operandi of the community rather than each doing their
> > own "release."
> >
> >> If so, I can say that there is no intent to ever do such a thing
> >> again for a variety of reasons, including the confusion it has caused.
> >
> > Point well taken! Even the best of intentions is misunderstood at
> > times, and I'm thrilled that we are now able to work through all of
> > this.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> I like your point on simply merging everything back together and thus
> >> eliminating these complexities.  This is not a small piece of work by
any
> >> means, but I am biased towards "simple".  Unfortunately, the LLEK code
base
> >> was not maintained in such a way as to make merging back with the
community
> >> maintained Official Koha easy; it in fact will be challenging.  No one
can
> >> say with certainty what the intent of the LibLime owners were at the
time
> >> LLEK was established, but if they were intending to fork the code it
would
> >> look very much like what we have acquired.
> >>
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on the point of
> > the difficulty of re-merging the LLEK code base back into the official
> > code base. There are individuals in this community with professional
> > experience in merging much, much more difficult messes back together
> > than LLEK ever thought about being.
> >
> >>
> >> So, while we seem to be in agreement on the goal (which is great!);
> >> achieving this in the next few weeks or months, while meeting our
client
> >> commitments is just not very likely.  It would be great for LibLime (me
in
> >> particular), to not have these multiple baseline issues, but that's not
the
> >> hand I've been dealt.  So, please accept my assurance that we share the
goal
> >> of a single baseline over time and are going to take incremental steps
> >> towards that as we work on our client commitments, but this will take a
good
> >> deal of time to get where we all want to be.  The lesson for all
involved is
> >> that un-doing a fork is painful and expensive.
> >
> > A sorrowful lesson indeed.
> >
> > Thanks for your responsiveness, Sean. This is a refreshing change in
> > what has heretofore been a rough relationship.
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> > Chris
> > _______________________________________________
> > Koha mailing list
> > Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Joann Ransom RLIANZA
> Head of Libraries,
> Horowhenua Library Trust.
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