[Koha] Foundation conversation

[Thomas Dukleth]

1.  MEMBERSHIP OF A FREE SOFTWARE PROJECT FOUNDATION.

1.1.  PURPOSE OF FREE SOFTWARE.

Free software is about user freedom.  The members of software support
companies, however important they may be to a free software project are
not a better class of users.  Free software ensures that every user has
the right to act as a developer and cannot be subservient to other
developers who came previously.


1.2.  ROLE OF MERIT.

Free software communities can certainly function to some degree on merit. 
However, defering to some people over their merit in some domain such as
development is very different from deferring to the same people over
another issue such as community organisation.  As others have stated,
merit is significantly attached to individuals.  Companies may have
collective merit in some domains but merit is something which cannot be
bought and sold.


1.3.  OTHER MODELS.

There are certainly software community organisations set up by companies
in which one company is the originator and almost the sole developer of
the software.  Such companies are often pursuing a non-free development
model in addition to the free software model.  Ensuring a very significant
level of representation for a company or set of companies in a free
software organisation employs a free software organisation for some
purpose other than user freedom.  An organisation dominated by those
associated with any particular company or set of companies should not be
trusted to serve the best interests of the users.


1.4.  BALANCE OF INTERESTS.

Users are well aware that they need software support companies.  Those
attempting to safeguard software company interests need not fear user
control of community organisations.


1.5.  RULES TO PROTECT USER'S INTERESTS.

Without carefully considered safeguards, organisations call all too easily
become captured by particular business interests.

For the time being, the Koha community has voted to organise itself as a
committee of the Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) in a large vote open to
everyone in the Koha community.  Just as the GPL has terms restricting
software developers to protect user freedom in the software, the HLT Koha
Committee has rules restricting committee membership from being dominated
by an particular business interests which protects all user's interests in
the community.  The rules are posted at
http://koha-community.org/koha-project-organization/horowhenua-library-trust-koha-committee-rules/
.

There are common rules for the members of the committee about adequate
notice of meetings, what constitutes a quorum, and exclusions for conflict
of interest.

Clause 5, rule 2 protects the small number of committee members, seven
maximum members, from being captured by a particular business interest. 
"No more than 30 per cent of Members (rounded down) may be appointed who
have a material financial interest in or are employees of the same
organisation or whose organisations have a supplier / customer
relationship.  If at any time a breach of this clause is identified, the
relevant Member last appointed shall resign."  A 30 percent restriction
allows two of the seven members to be associated with the same company. 
It prevents the committee from being captured by members associated with a
single company aligning with only one other committee member.  The smaller
the number of members needed for conducting business, the greater the need
for such a rule.

I believe that most of us look forward to the prospect of a fully
independent Koha foundation.  However, I think that few of us look forward
to the lengthy discussion about bylaws which will be needed to ensure that
such a foundation remains truly independent.


2.  WAY FORWARD.

We should be discussing the points on which we can agree with PTFS as PTFS
are members of the Koha community with interests common to all members of
the community.  Until we concentrate our attention and our approach to
organisation around what we share in common, we will continue to have
unnecessary strife.

Criticisms of particular ill advised actions taken by some certainly have
a necessary place to remind people of the good expectations which we all
have of each others' behaviour.  However, we have to be able to set aside
some differences to have a productive discussion.


Thomas Dukleth
Agogme
109 E 9th Street, 3D
New York, NY  10003
USA
http://www.agogme.com
+1 212-674-3783