[Koha] Fwd: LibLime ideas on a Koha Software Foundation

[MJ Ray]

ed c wrote:
> --- On Thu, 10/14/10, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote: [...]
> > Does a vendor tie seem in keeping with a FOSS project host
> > corporation to anyone?
> 
> In general, I don't think a vendor tie is necessarily against
> keeping with FOSS values. Many successful Open Source products have
> significant vendor ties. MySQL is a prime example.

As with the examples in the other email, MySQL has not got its own
project host corporation.

However, the buying and selling of MySQL's producers is quite an
enlightening case study.  At one point, MySQL founder Monty Widenius
raised a petition of over 50,000 developers and users against the
Oracle purchase.  The story has resulted in MariaDB, hosted by the
Open Database Alliance, a vendor-neutral consortium of open source
database developers and solution providers.

I think MySQL is a great example of what we should try to avoid and
skip ahead to a vendor-neutral organisation.  Learning from others'
mistakes is even better than learning from one's own.

[...]
> > Agreeing to any permanent representation on the board would open a
> > can of worms because I expect all 30 or so current vendors would
> > like something similar and several were giving to this project
> > community before LibLime even launched.
> 
> Well, yes and no. LibLime did launch after a lot of development took
> place, but they also acquired the assets relating to Koha from the
> initial developers as I understand it.

Please, I beg you, generally ignore the "assets" argument.  Like
"property" it is a red herring, a word to avoid when discussing
software.

> > It's hard to measure how much, because I'm sure we've seen patches
> > committed under the wrong author's byline.  It would be a bit odd
> > to give permanent credit for "standing" only to one company that
> > bought the 2005-9 LibLime business, wouldn't it?
> 
> No. Not at all. If they legally acquired the assets, they have
> acquired the assets and should have the same rights afforded to them
> as if they were the same entity/people that developed them.

Well, I asked everyone to ignore the "assets" word to avoid, but if
you insist, let's examine them:

"The acquisition involves the transfer of staff from Katipo to
LibLime, including the original author of Koha, Chris Cormack. Assets
involved in the acquisition include existing support contracts with
libraries that contracted with Katipo for support of Koha; copyrights
and trademarks related to Koha; and the koha.org domain."
http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=12738

First, I'm pretty sure that the people ("staff"!) who transferred
then no longer work for LibLime now.

As well as the people being different, the entity has changed too.
MetaVore's LibLime is now PTFS's LibLime.

The support contracts I'm not sure about, but they have their own
reward.

The copyrights have been diluted as LibLime withdrew into LEK and so
on, and other companies stepped up to contribute to real Koha.
They're also licensed under GPL2+, so we don't need to acquire them.

The trademarks were only a subset anyway.

And the domain... this mailing list has seen how that was mishandled.

I feel that a reasonable judge would regard whatever goodwill MetaVore
bought as exhausted long ago.  Even the non-compete of the seller only
lasted something like two years and Katipo are back involved
commercially once again.

So, what exactly still remains of the purchase?  Just the domain?
Plus the other ones listed in
http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-September/025238.html
which PTFS appears to be squatting on.  40% control is too steep a
price for a ten-quid domain, isn't it?

> The question to me is more what that means in terms of rights,
> guarantees, etc. in any new Koha organization. Should any entity
> that has contributed code or other intellectual property have some
> sort of guarantees? I don't know the answer. However if the answer
> is yes, then PTFS/LibLime has a legitimate claim here.

No, no guarantees.  A person doesn't get to contribute something and
then lay claim to it still.  That's not how gift economies (and koha
means gift, after all) usually work.

[...]
> Personally, I wouldn't mind if a few key entities/persons got some
> level of guaranteed seats at the table for a limited time period.
> [...] As I said, I don't know if
> PTFS would agree to such an alternative proposal, but my gut feeling
> is if they don't have at least an initial seat, they would be
> unlikely to relinquish the assets they control. This might be
> unfortunate and not what a significant portion of the community
> would prefer, but I think it is reality. If what I suspect of PTFS
> is true and the community doesn't want to meet them at some point in
> the middle (or if PTFS is unwilling to accept a compromise), I fear
> that Thomas Krichel is correct when he says "the whole thing will
> not be over until the community changes the name of the software and
> gets another domain for it."

We shouldn't change.  Koha is our project and a lot of us have spent a
lot of time and resources building it and our community.  One recent
entrant buying another slightly less recent entrant should not force
earlier participants out of the home we've all built.  PTFS should
change the name of their forked community - they've already a new logo.

I'm glad that we seem to agree on one thing though: maybe "a limited
time period" or "an initial seat" we should discuss.  A bloc of seats
forever is far too much.  A foundation - with perpetual special rights
for founder(s) - doesn't make sense for this project.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
Past Koha Release Manager (2.0), LMS programmer, statistician, webmaster.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha