[Koha] Community Feedback

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!


>> I respectfully disagree. It's like a doctor saying that you'll need
your leg
>> amputated before trying physical therapy.
>Sigh ... I can't even count how many ways it's NOT like that.


That sigh and those caps typify the sort of negative community attitude
that I'd rather avoid. I'm trying to offer constructive criticism and
I'm being met time and time with condescension. 



>You seem to be aiming a lot of your frustration at LibLime. I'd argue
>that we've done a very good job promoting just the spirit you're
>saying the community is known for. I think we've specifically planned
>for that, and have aired topics for discussion to plan for just that
>type of project. I wonder why you think we have a lack of planning,
>from my POV, it's quite the opposite.
>


You asked me to be specific, so I was. I think you all did a better job
initially than now. I remember a time when there was one day a week
where LibLime devoted itself to the community gratis. It wasn't carried
on very long, but the gesture was important. Even if the interval were
changed to be once a month or once a quarter, at least it would be
there. 
What I've not seen, that I think we ought to see the project do, would
be for a friendly (yes friendly!) coding competition. They happen all
the time on different projects. People really get into them and stuff
gets done. It could be like coding field day, and we could fabricate
some sort of ridiculous looking Kiwi trophy. Let's put the fun back into
the project.


>This is over on the other thread, where this started, before you
>changed threads on me, so I'll paste it in again:


I changed threads since this doesn't much have to do with acquisitions
and does have to do with community feedback.


>
>My perception is that you're coming at this from the perspective of a
>library who's downloaded Koha on your own, and who's been active in
>the community with respect to documentation and help on the various
>mailing lists, right? ie, you haven't signed up for support with a
>Koha company, and you haven't contributed or sponsored any code,
>right? BTW: I think that's just great, hats off to you for your
>continued involvement and community support, it's much appreciated and
>the community wouldn't be the same without you and others like you.
>


I didn't need support at a premium when my husband was more than capable
of providing me with technical support. He's come close on a couple of
occasions to contributing code. As it was, as the years went by and I
spoke with Chris and Paul and others, I felt like my knowledge base was
growing large enough to attempt an installation on my own. I'm still
toying with the idea of taking a PERL class.

This is like fundraising, Josh. Things grow over months and years. 


>However, things get tricky because as valuable as all those activities
>you do are, they don't do help motivate Koha developers to change add
>or improve code. This isn't the kind of open source community where


I disagree heavily with this. I've had a number of conversations over
the years off list with developers who took what I said, asked further
probing questions, and would mock up a feature. You did this yourself
with the MARC export feature over a lunch break. How much free testing
with specific feedback on beta 3 did I provide you? The only reason I
didn't do more then was that I felt insignificant.


>we've got a bunch of volunteers contributing code out of the goodness
>of their hearts ... over 90% of Koha is done by programmers who work
>on Koha as a full time job (or two) to put meals on the table.



I'm not sure how true this is anymore. It's a lot larger project now
than it was a few years ago. Those same programmers that are putting
meals on the table have also put free code back in. The list of the top
contributors offers an interesting testimony over time.


>Currently, the margins on Koha development are so low, many of us have
>to supplement our Koha development work with other services just to
>make ends meet.
>


And this, from another of your emails, is relevant here:


>The reason is that none of the developers in this community get paid a
>salary to work on it. That's the bottom line. The librarians get paid
>a salary to use the system, and presumably that gives people like you
>some time to spend doing great stuff like documentation, etc. But us
>developers don't have salaries outside of our Koha work, so we only
>have time to work on stuff we're paid for, it's as simple as that.



My salary at Hinsdale was about $15,000. That was a raise from my
predecessors. I was a lucky rural Librarian at that rate, too. I worked
there for many reasons, one of them being that I didn't think it was
fair that doctors and teachers could participate in programmes that
situated them in either rural or urban settings of need and that there
was no such programme for Librarians. There is more to life and Koha
than money.


>So from that perspective, the perspective of a starving developer,
>what are your thoughts on how we developers can both keep our stomachs
>full (not to mention mortgages, etc.), and fulfill the needs of users
>like yourself? Some kind of voting mechanism that gives a weight of
>voting based on dollars, and a commitment from the development
>community to tap that resource for sponsoring voted-upon features?
>It's a very interesting problem, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on
>how we might solve it.


There's a much wider pool at play though. I mentioned earlier in the
email that I'd like to see a return to a free programming and
development day where any user could show up in IRC or elsewhere and
have the ear of a developer. If folks did this in rotation, it would be
less of a stress on everyone.

Voting by dollar is a terrible system. The current financial state of
affairs points that out. That's how one ends up with fragmented feature
laden code that doesn't have stability since it's not sexy to fund
rewrites. I don't want to see that happen here. Why isn't there a rating
system for users built into the roadmap? Why can't we prioritise
features that aren't sponsored as a community that way the stuff that we
want to see get done is seen to after the paid projects if that's going
to be the way you approach things? We need to be thinking about the
large picture. I think it's financially wasteful to *not* think about
the big future trends as far in advance as possible.

I'd also point out that you seem to be falling in the pitfall of
assuming that what someone pays for isn't of interest to other users and
vice versa. Also that people that aren't currently donating money or
code to the project won't ever donate money in future. I feel like every
contribution is meaningful and ought to be encourage instead of imposing
a caste system of developer and non developer or paying client and riff
raff.

Cheers,
Brooke 
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