[Koha] Message from PTFS/LibLime

[John Yokley]

There has been some concern expressed recently about PTFS/LibLime owning the
registry entries for several domain names with the word Koha in them.  I
would like to address that and other issues.



·         In mid-March, of this year, PTFS announced the acquisition of
LibLime from Metavore.

·         In April, LibLime attempted to communicate with Horowhenua Library
Trust Koha Committee about taking over support for koha.org, but
communications were not successful.

·         In May, LibLime released Harley as well as approximately 70
individual feature commits from LIBLIME customer-sponsored development and
LIBLIME corporate-sponsored development.   Harley was 3.0.x Koha with all of
the 70 feature commits included.  This gave potential Koha users the
opportunity to either download Harley with the features, or select
individual features for individual use.  While 3.2 was nearing official
release at that time, our customers who sponsored the development were
pleased to see several of those features included in the 3.2 plans.

·         Throughout the remainder of the summer, LibLime has continued to
develop sponsored features for customers under contracts acquired through
the purchase of LibLime.



I am saddened at the criticism directed at PTFS/LibLime and our employees on
blog posts, listservs, and other electronic communication forums.   Since Q3
2008, PTFS has been participating in the Koha community.  This participation
includes code submission, attendance and sponsorship at KohaCon 2009, active
use of Bugzilla for new feature development, and IRC/Listserv
contributions.   We have expanded the worldwide use of Koha by bringing many
new customers to the project, and we continue to promote the benefits of
open source ILS solutions.  We have released customer-sponsored and
PTFS/LibLime-sponsored code for worldwide use, and we will continue to do
so.



In regards to the domain names, it is part of our standard operating
procedures to purchase domain names in the business markets we are involved
with and LibLime has acquired multiple domain names related to Koha and open
source ILS.  In addition, some of these names were also transferred over as
a part of the LibLime acquisition.  PTFS owns many domain names in all our
lines of business.  We did not try to hide this action and could have made
these transactions private.  Nothing has been done with the domain names at
this point.  They do not have web sites built around them, nor do they
re-direct anywhere.  They are simply owned by LibLime, thus preventing any
non-Koha entity or competitor from acquiring the domains and diverting
potential future Koha users to other ILS solutions.  This is to the benefit
of all Koha users and developers.



LibLime would like to help the Koha community build a better Koha for the
future.  There is much to do to develop the application so that it can
compete head to head with commercial solutions in all library markets.
LibLime’s goal is to help make sure that Koha becomes the dominant open
source ILS solution and not just another alternative.   To ensure success,
we believe that the Koha organization needs to grow into an organization
that will globally unite all those involved with Koha.  The project needs
many companies, independent developers and Koha affiliated intuitions and
customers worldwide to participate and work harmoniously together help build
the world’s best open source ILS.



The HLT Koha Committee was established as holding body for the Koha project
property.  We believe that it is now time to move to the next step and
create a full-fledged governance structure capable of supporting Koha as a
rapidly expanding global open source endeavor.



In this regards, LibLime will help organize and fund the creation of a Koha
Software Foundation as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.   Once the
establishment of the Koha Software Foundation is complete, PTFS/LibLime will
transfer the assets we own related to Koha to this corporation, including
Koha related domain names as well as pending trademark applications.



LibLime officially requests that interested parties contact us who are
interested in helping to create and manage this foundation.  We would
welcome and hope that multiple worldwide groups will all participate
together.  Initially, LibLime will help to fund the development of articles,
bylaws and governance documents and help the foundation to become a self
supporting organization.  LibLime does not aim to dominate or control the
foundation; we will expect to participate as any qualified organization and
as a voting member.   We believe that the establishment of an independent
foundation will provide the structure for ongoing management and governance
of the Koha project and should provide the basis for a less divisive
atmosphere surrounding the efforts of all the stakeholders involved,
including the companies involved in development and support services as well
as the libraries and consortium that rely on Koha.



Our decisions on how LibLime will continue to proceed in the Koha project
will continue to be based upon communications we receive, proposals to
support the Koha Foundation and acceptance of our organization as a viable
part of the community to help Koha become the world’s best ILS.



Best regards:



John Yokley

CEO

PTFS/LibLime
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