[Koha] [Koha-translate] [Koha-devel] Announcing ... Newkoha.org Website based on Plone

[Joshua Ferraro]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Thomas Dukleth <kohalist at agogme.com> wrote:
> Reply inline:
>
> On Tue, May 12, 2009 2:01 am, Rachel Hamilton-Williams wrote:
>>
>>> I agree with this 100%.  Let's have a separate page that lists
>>> sponsors (like the About page in Koha itself) but let's keep the "for
>>> pay" page exclusively for companies in the Koha community wishing to
>>> offer their services.
>>>
>
> 1.  FAILING TO SHOW EXPERTISE.
>
>> Yep - and I see no contradiction with a company saying the features that
>> they've developed - it's good to show what their expertise is, which is
>> what people are interested in
>
> Showing expertise by identifying features which support companies have
> developed or to which they have made significant contributions is
> important.  However, the new presentation of such information in the pay
> for support page is not representative of the work actually done and the
> multiple parties which have contributed significantly to that work as a
> community project.
>
> The presentation over-represents the work of some and under-represents the
> work of others.  That presentation is unfair to both 'major contributors'
> and 'minor contributors'.  The presented contributions of one 'major
> contributor' are overrepresented relative to the contributions of the
> other 'major contributor'.  Some 'minor contributors' have contributed
> major features and made major contributions to features originally
> developed by others, but the presentation does not distinguish them by any
> contribution.  Most of all the presentation is unfair to the Koha project
> itself which is a community project to which everyone is expected to
> contribute.
Can you please list some specific examples of support vendors on that
page who's contributions are under-represented? That would really help
because we could add those contributions directly to the page.

Cheers,

Josh

> Consequently, the presentation does not adequately identify the expertise
> which it supposedly intended to show.  People are interested in knowing
> the expertise of companies but the actual information presented is
> counter-informative.  Much less information is presented than would be
> needed to be informative and not be very misleading.
>
> A proper full presentation of significant contributions to Koha does not
> belong in a directory of support companies because giving due attributions
> for significant contributions would transform a directory of support
> companies into a feature list.  Only a separate contributions page or set
> of pages would have the space to properly represent significant
> contributions.  Such a contributions page or set of pages could be linked
> from the pay for support page.
>
>
> 2.  ANNOTATION VALUE LISTS.
>
> Some set of annotations constrained by value lists for which there is real
> consensus may be helpful on the pay for support page.  Annotations from
> constrained value lists would be very different from what is presented
> currently where some of the annotations do not seem to have any objective
> criteria applied for their inclusion or omission.
>
>
> 3.  ATTRIBUTION PAGE OR PAGES.
>
> Contributions should certainly be acknowledged with appropriate
> attribution but they must be fairly presented where there is proper space
> to present them fairly.  In a fair presentation, the contributions of the
> 'major contributors' would be appropriately seen to be enormous but they
> would not detract from the contributions of others or the community nature
> of the project.
>
> People contributing to Koha are working towards a common goal.  As they
> pursue their own particular interests for their own contributions they
> help others and create a better system which everyone can use and on which
> everyone can build.
>
>
> 4.  FAIRNESS AND BEING SEEN TO BE FAIR.
>
> Supposedly historical ordering which is not actually historical is a worse
> problem than the inadequate presentation of contributions because it is
> more obviously inaccurate.  Yet, every problem of unfair presentation
> needs to be addressed.
>
> We should not impute people's motives much as we may wonder and try to
> understand them.  We should merely encourage others  not only to pursue
> their interests fairly but also in a manner which is seen to be fair.
> This fundamental respect and fairness towards others despite private
> differences and problems has always been a self-evident characteristic of
> the Koha community from the beginning.
>
> [...]
>
>
> Thomas Dukleth
> Agogme
> 109 E 9th Street, 3D
> New York, NY  10003
> USA
> http://www.agogme.com
> 212-674-3783
>
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>



-- 
Joshua Ferraro                       SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
CEO                         migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS