[Koha] Registering as a support provider at koha-community.org

[Ian Walls]

Here's what I'm seeing:

The current proposal is for our Support Companies page to list *every
company claiming (with some level of verifiability) to offer Koha services*.
 Thus, the purpose of the page is to simply be a list of all the potential
possibilities for a Koha support company, with no quality judgement of any
kind placed on the companies.  Getting listed only requires the verification
of a simple fact.

The difficulty comes with the possibility of a company offering Koha
services that are not in the spirit of the community.  It seems does indeed
seem counterproductive to list companies that would be working somehow
against the communal good, but determining what that good is, and whether a
company is actively undermining it, requires a judgement to be made, which
in turn requires a judge, and (to be fair) some kind of appeals process,
etc.  The social machinery necessary to run such a system in an open way
compatible with the spirit of our community would require effort that could
otherwise be spent patching, documenting or enjoying life.  So, in order to
make the Support Companies page serve as *a list of recommended Koha support
companies*, we as a community have to work that much harder.  It's not
longer a matter of verifying a fact to get listed, it's a matter of
judgement.

If I may offer a third position for discussion:  what if the community were
to define a discrete list of potential Koha services that a company can
offer to be listed?  For example:

Local/hosted installation of Koha 3.0.x (and later 3.2.0)
Local/hosted installation of a customized Koha version
Migration services
Server maintenance
Open source code development
On-site training
Publicly available git repository
etc., etc., etc.

By making these services clear and descriptive (and still all verifiable),
we can give interested parties the world over a more complete picture of
what each company is offering, and allow them to make their own judgement on
how well that company can support their needs.  Listing a company is still a
matter of checking facts, just a more fine-grained set of them.

Comments, questions, counterpoints?


-Ian



On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:22 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at software.coop> wrote:

> Reed Wade wrote:
> > On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:18 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> > > Can we add a solidarity clause?  Do we want to list support providers
> >
> > There was a bit of discussion on this point in the IRC mtg. The
> > consensus resolved to something like "it's difficult and distracting
> > to make and maintain and enforce a reliable test of goodness so
> > instead just keep it clean and simple"
>
> I didn't find it on http://stats.workbuffer.org/irclog/koha/2010-05-04
> and I don't understand the reasons for that consensus.  Sorting this out
> correctly once seems much less distracting than leaving it fuzzy and
> having the sort of problems we had under LibLime's rule, while my
> proposed solidarity clause seems pretty clean and simple to me.
>
> > plus "oh, and maybe we'll also add a Cool Vendors Do This check list
> > to appear on the directly page as well"
>
> Would librarians involved in purchasing like to comment on how many
> they think would actually use such a checklist as part of choosing a
> support provider?  If it'd work, great, but I have my doubts that it
> is compatible with Best Value and similar purchasing rules, so it is
> better for the community to limit listing to those in good standing.
>
> > the energy would be better spent updating docs or making patches or
> > watching tv or something
>
> No, not really.  This is a bang per buck thing: we should invest this
> bit of energy to free up a lot of vendor energy for the community.
>
> If our community directs paid work towards vendors who are working
> against it, then those who play nice will not achieve their potential
> and the community will benefit less than it could.  We're effectively
> working against ourselves if we help those who work against us.
>
> Hope that explains,
> --
> MJ Ray (slef)  Webmaster and LMS developer at     | software
> www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        |  .... co
> IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html |  .... op
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>



-- 
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
ALA Booth # 817
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal
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