Hi Joshua,<br><br>I was very pleased to receive your email. I felt it was such a shame that your relationship with the Koha international community was ending in such an awful way given the great contributions you have made over the years. It really would be a sign of good faith on your intentions if you could make your Git repositories available alongside the others. I understand this would take next to no time at all.<br>
<br>Regards,<br><br>Joann Ransom.<br>Horowhenua Library Trust. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Joshua Ferraro <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jmf@liblime.com">jmf@liblime.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi folks,<br>
<br>
I would like to further clarify LibLime's recent announcement about<br>
the LibLime Enterprise Koha platform and its implications for the<br>
greater Koha community, as well as LibLime customers.<br>
<br>
First, we at LibLime apologize for what may have seemed like a<br>
surprise announcement. We have been working hard on creating a<br>
business model that will both ensure the success of our customers and<br>
the long-term viability of Koha. We hope that the discussion below in<br>
Q & A format will help promote better understanding about what we are<br>
doing, and that we can all move forward, wishing each other well.<br>
<br>
Q: Is LibLime Enterprise Koha a 'Fork' of Koha?<br>
<br>
A: LibLime Enterprise Koha is not a 'fork' of Koha. LibLime Enterprise<br>
Koha is a set of deployment and development procedures that allows us<br>
to provide our customers with ongoing updates to Koha on a realistic<br>
schedule.<br>
<br>
This is a change in process for LibLime, but not a change in<br>
philosophy. Prior to this change, our development process began with<br>
contribution to the Koha community, often before a set of patches was<br>
even approved by the sponsoring customer. This real-time contribution<br>
process created enormous overhead, especially given the volume of<br>
development that LibLime is involved in (which historically and<br>
currently represents an order of magnitude more than the entire rest<br>
of the community combined). Our new approach moves the contribution<br>
phase of development to the end of the cycle, which allows us and our<br>
customers adequate time to vet the functionality and to ensure that it<br>
integrates seamlessly with the public Koha repository.<br>
<br>
Q: Has LibLime withdrawn from the Koha community?<br>
<br>
A: LibLime has not withdrawn, and does not intend to withdraw, from<br>
the Koha community. LibLime has invested significant resources into<br>
Koha development and community infrastructure and will continue to do<br>
so. LibLime will publish our LibLime Enterprise Koha enhancements. The<br>
integration process with the main Koha code repository will be a<br>
seamless one. We currently support dozens of libraries running on<br>
official Koha versions on their own servers and it is critical to<br>
their success that they benefit from the LibLime customer-sponsored<br>
contributions.<br>
<br>
Q: Is LibLime Enterprise Koha truly open source both in the letter and<br>
spirit of the movement?<br>
<br>
A: Our announcements are clear on this issue. From the press release<br>
"Just to make one thing crystal clear: All of LibLime's development<br>
efforts will be available to the library community under an<br>
open-source license," ... "These are process changes, not<br>
philosophical changes. As the leader in open-source solutions for<br>
libraries, LibLime is 100% committed to the open-source movement."<br>
<br>
Q: Why has LibLime chosen to deploy LibLime Enterprise Koha as a<br>
Software as a Service offering only?<br>
<br>
A: Our new cloud-computing platform makes the process of developing,<br>
upgrading and maintaining Koha a seamless and fully-automated process.<br>
We have not yet developed the mechanism for managing remote Koha<br>
installations outside of our platform. The requirements for keeping<br>
these off-platform installations in sync with the rest of our install<br>
base is not feasible. We are 100% committed to continuing to upgrade<br>
our Appliance customers(non-hosted) and to keep them in step with the<br>
latest community-released versions of Koha.<br>
<br>
Thanks for your understanding.<br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br>
<br>
Josh<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">Joshua Ferraro SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE<br>
CEO migration, training, maintenance, support<br>
LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS<br>
<a href="mailto:jmf@liblime.com">jmf@liblime.com</a> |Full Demos at <a href="http://liblime.com/koha" target="_blank">http://liblime.com/koha</a> |1(888)KohaILS<br>
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</font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Joann Ransom RLIANZA<br>Acting Head of Libraries,<br>Horowhenua Library Trust.<br>