[Koha] ANNOUNCE: Koha perl dependency RPMs for Red Hat 9

[Tim Bell]

On Mon 23 Jun 2003 at 08:22:06 +1200, Peter Harrison wrote:
> On Monday 23 June 2003 01:22 am, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:
> > "it would really help a lot of not-so-IT librarians to just install Koha
> > without them knowing the hard work."
> >
> > Correct..  In this manner and other things leading to the one click instal,
> > shall any software package gain universal acceptance...
> 
> A manager once put me right on this point. Your application might be the best 
> in the world, but if the install isn't easy, or doesn't work right, the user 
> will never see how good it is.

That's a fair point, but it reminds me of the old adage: "Good, cheap,
fast: choose any two."  I'm not sure exactly how the adage would be
worded as it relates to software installation, but I'm increasingly of
the opinion that software which is functional, easy to install, and easy
to upgrade is becoming increasingly harder to create.

> This is a problem with open source in general - that installation is far 
> harder than with commercial applications. Developers know how to build and 
> deploy, while users are not conversant with the tools - and shouldn't need to 
> be.

Again, I agree.  But that's why there are IT people -- system
administrators, in particular -- who bridge the gap between users and
software developers/vendors by installing and maintaining software.

And regarding open source, there are many reasons why installation is
often harder than for a similar commercial application.  But the blame
for that should usually be shared between the open-source application
and the open-source operating system it runs on.  My own experience is
that Debian GNU/Linux makes it much easier to install software than
RPM-based distributions (such as Red Hat).  But there's no free lunch:
packaging software for Debian is harder because of the more stringent
quality controls which are required.

What does all this mean for Koha?  Well, I'm not a Koha developer (not
even a user yet, although I hope to persuade our library one day), but
here are the options as I see them to make installation easier:

  1. Provide Koha packaged for each OS you want to support (e.g. Red
     Hat, Debian, SuSE, etc., or Windows even).  In some cases this
     might require also supplying the required supporting packages
     (which is what started this whole discussion thread, I believe).

     The packaging of Koha for different distributions could be
     contributed by people other than core development people if
     necessary.

  2. Provide Koha packaged for a single Linux distribution, and possibly
     incorporated on a custom Linux install CD image.

  3. Improve the install scripts to check for required Perl modules and
     install them from CPAN if necessary.

Any of those would mean considerable work, but should improve the ease
of installation.  (If we ever moved to Koha, we'd probably be able to
contribute Debian packages.)

But I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that users need to
be realistic in their expectations of the installation process.  To
quote (possibly misquote) Einstein, things should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler.

Tim.
-- 
Tim Bell  --  bhat at trinity.unimelb.edu.au  --  System Administrator
Trinity College, Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia