Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
I plan to write something, but I need help from a UX person. I want a simple taskboard, with bugs, that people can claim by a simple click. Then a simple karma type system. ByWater have signed off 10 Catalyst patches, Catalyst have signed off 5 software.coop and 1 Bywater patch, leaving Catalyst 4 patches to go ... kind of idea. It's not fully formed, but if it sounds like something people would to see, or explore further, let me know and I will devote some evenings to it. I would totally be behind an idea like this. Ideally it would be great to easily see if we (ByWater) really are doing enough to eventually get our patches signed off. Something like this would give us a great snapshot of where we need to quickly pick up the slack or just help another developer/company. Although I usually look for patches that are within my skillset to sign-off on, the company or person that submitted the patch is never an issue or goal for me to test or sign-off and I would urge that mind-set stay in the forefront for everyone (which I'm pretty positive that it will). Chris -- Chris Cormack Catalyst IT Ltd. +64 4 803 2238 PO Box 11-053, Manners St, Wellington 6142, New Zealand ___ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha -- --- Brendan A. Gallagher ByWater Solutions CEO Support and Consulting for Open Source Software Installation, Data Migration, Training, Customization, Hosting and Complete Support Packages Headquarters: Santa Barbara, CA - Office: Redding, CT Phone # (888) 900-8944 http://bywatersolutions.com i...@bywatersolutions.com ___ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
Paul Poulain wrote: Le 07/11/2013 17:31, glaws a écrit : *+1. Excellent idea! How would this work? Would the funding organization contract directly with a separate dev to signoff/QA, or would the code developer contract with someone to do this? Would there be a conflict of interest if the funding organization had someone on their staff sign/QA if that person was qualified?* I started a private discussion with some other developers yesterday, about this question. There are different ways to achieve this goal: * the funder funds 3 different organisations he choose * the funder funds 1 organisation, that sub-contract 2 others Uh-oh! I think both of those present the same conflict of interest that is why it is(was?) discouraged for people from one company to do all the development and signing on a patch: they all have a short-term financial incentive to approve less-than-great work. I'm sure many wouldn't, but it still means the reviews aren't very independent. I'd like it if developers could barter sign-off reviews (not the actual sign-offs, because it takes as much time to reject with reasons - if not more time) in a bit more structured/asynchronous way than the current IRC-based begging/nagging. Then a funder could fund 1 organisation and it barters reviews with others to ensure its developments get reviewed. Has anyone an easy way to do this? Think of it like product reviews in magazines. If the manufacturer is paying for the review, it's seen as less reliable than if the recipients of the review are paying for it... we could see the pot of bartered reviews as like the koha-community paying for reviews - but paying by writing other reviews. That still leaves QA as a question, but it's reviews/signoffs that is the tighter bottleneck, isn't it? Other that that aspect, I agree with much of what Paul wrote, which should surprise almost no-one. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/ ___ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
* MJ Ray (m...@phonecoop.coop) wrote: Paul Poulain wrote: Le 07/11/2013 17:31, glaws a écrit : *+1. Excellent idea! How would this work? Would the funding organization contract directly with a separate dev to signoff/QA, or would the code developer contract with someone to do this? Would there be a conflict of interest if the funding organization had someone on their staff sign/QA if that person was qualified?* I started a private discussion with some other developers yesterday, about this question. There are different ways to achieve this goal: * the funder funds 3 different organisations he choose * the funder funds 1 organisation, that sub-contract 2 others Uh-oh! I think both of those present the same conflict of interest that is why it is(was?) discouraged for people from one company to do all the development and signing on a patch: they all have a short-term financial incentive to approve less-than-great work. I'm sure many wouldn't, but it still means the reviews aren't very independent. I'd like it if developers could barter sign-off reviews (not the actual sign-offs, because it takes as much time to reject with reasons - if not more time) in a bit more structured/asynchronous way than the current IRC-based begging/nagging. Then a funder could fund 1 organisation and it barters reviews with others to ensure its developments get reviewed. Has anyone an easy way to do this? I plan to write something, but I need help from a UX person. I want a simple taskboard, with bugs, that people can claim by a simple click. Then a simple karma type system. ByWater have signed off 10 Catalyst patches, Catalyst have signed off 5 software.coop and 1 Bywater patch, leaving Catalyst 4 patches to go ... kind of idea. It's not fully formed, but if it sounds like something people would to see, or explore further, let me know and I will devote some evenings to it. Chris -- Chris Cormack Catalyst IT Ltd. +64 4 803 2238 PO Box 11-053, Manners St, Wellington 6142, New Zealand ___ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
Le 07/11/2013 17:31, glaws a écrit : An important comment here from the attendees was that when someone is funding a development - they should not just fund the code, but also plan for time and funding for the Sign-Off process and the QA process. *+1. Excellent idea! How would this work? Would the funding organization contract directly with a separate dev to signoff/QA, or would the code developer contract with someone to do this? Would there be a conflict of interest if the funding organization had someone on their staff sign/QA if that person was qualified?* I started a private discussion with some other developers yesterday, about this question. There are different ways to achieve this goal: * the funder funds 3 different organisations he choose * the funder funds 1 organisation, that sub-contract 2 others I'm about to try something like that in France. Seen from France side, if we want to have a chance to get some funding, it must be simple for the funder. So funding 1 org, that is responsible of subcontracting 2 others. Funding and how would we organize this? Since many in the audience were from the USA - there was discussion of getting a users group going again OR creating some sort of “non-profit like org” where libraries could pool funding towards projects. An organization like this would be able to apply for grants etc. Something where we could crowd-source funding and then fund a developer for a number of hours towards a project. *+1. I also am generally in favor of charging some nominal amount to attend KUG's/conferences. Even if it's just 25 USD--split the amount between the hosting organization for coffee and contribute some to Koha plumbing. US libraries typically can't just donate money to anything, but they certainly are used to paying attendance fees, and $25 or $50 is only a small fraction of the cost of flying and hotels.* maybe that's possible for US meetings. For french ones, we decided to keep them free, because we want to attract more libraries to those conferences ! OTOH, the french NPO (kohala) has decided to increase the NPO membership fee, to have a little bit more money to fund some work. It's been considered as a valid option, because the membership is made by libraries that already use Koha, so they understand what the money can be used for. Note that the amount risen is much too small to fund what we need. *And as long as I'm on the general subject of funding, I've often thought privately that there should be some way to help out the Horowhenua Library Trust for their work of holding the Koha keys. In an ideal world they should have a 10 million USD trust fund to aggressively support Koha.* 10 millions, I would be very happy for the project with this amount. I would even be happy with just one ;-) Have a hackfest in Athen’s Ohio next summer. Next year will be 10 years since Koha migrated to the US and I think it’s about time we have a hackfest here. *+1* +1 too. We plan to have the 4th hackfest in Europe in 2014 march, I hope I'll be able to send one or more BibLibre hackers to Athens OH ! I have briefly talked with Owen Leonard about putting this together for next summer... Gauge the interest of a North American Koha users group so at least we are having more of the community meeting together and sharing practices and ideas. Comments from Galen As far as a US or North American user group goes: I think a relaunch should start off with just the goal of hosting a US/NA conference, as it would /not/ be necessary to set up a nonprofit first to run conferences. *+1* Yes, my preference going to work on both ! *Staccato comment #1: most of the Koha conferences to date (to the limited extent I'm qualified to comment on this) have been very technically focused. Not sure I understand what you mean here. The first 3 days, are really non tech focused. The hackfest is. And there's been different hackfests, depending on the audience: we sometimes do a lot of teaching how to hack Koha, and sometimes do actual hacking. This year, it was mostly focused on hacking, as most of attendees being long timer Koha hackers. But there's been some training for newbies as well (and I hope they've been happy with what they learned !) Someday there will begin to be more and more library staff attending, and those people will be more interested in end-user things. And someday I expect that KohaCon's will have different tracks, like code development, system administration and library staff interest. I think we need to start considering our audience soon. In hackfest in Europe, we had something like 12-15 librarians (most of them with *NO* technical skills) They've been *very* happy to: * work on non technical things like translations, or documentation * test patches using sandboxes * have talks together The 1st year I organized the hackfest, I had only a few librarians announcing themselves. So I send 10 mails to our 10 largest
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
Lots of lines snipped... *Staccato comment #1: most of the Koha conferences to date (to the limited extent I'm qualified to comment on this) have been very technically focused. Not sure I understand what you mean here. The first 3 days, are really non tech focused. Depends on your definition of tech. A lot of discussion (which I thoroughly enjoyed and learned from) focused on what features people wanted to improve it. As Koha becomes more widespread, I think KohaCon could benefit from more sessions on using it: *Now that I have this system installed, how can I get the best use out of it? *How do I get the library staff used to Koha? Training tips for Everylibrarian. *How does a non-sysadmin run the system? I'm sure others will be able to come up with more. One likely use for Koha is to give small libraries with minuscule budgets a chance to install an ILS at minimal cost. Maybe someone with a lot of extra time on their hands* could design a questionnaire that a library could download, fill out, and send to a vendor. The vendor could then configure Koha according to the library's needs and send them a server, or even just a hard drive. Plug it in, instant ILS! All right, it doesn't have any books in it yet, and cataloging is far from quick-n-easy, but at least their ILS is up and running. If there's a market for that kind of barebones service, maybe there could be a few sessions at KohaCon on supporting small libraries. Sorry if I'm rambling. I need another cup of tea... --Fred King kohau...@phred.us *If I worked at a place that would give me a sabbatical, I'd do it. Unfortunately, I don't. Besides, I have to finish my novel first.** **I'm a very slow reader. ___ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
comment note numerous snips from original post - On 11/06/2013 09:38 PM, Brendan Gallagher wrote: Hello All - I’d like to give a summary of a open discussion that occurred at KohaCon14 in Reno...a discussion on Funding the future of Koha...to educate the audience on some of the “plumbing” needs in the code...and how are we going to get that done. Many of these “needs” are larger projects...Not one support vendor can brunt the front of the plumbing needs that need to happen...We need to...plan going forward now. Points that were raised. snip--- An important comment here from the attendees was that when someone is funding a development - they should not just fund the code, but also plan for time and funding for the Sign-Off process and the QA process. *+1. Excellent idea! How would this work? Would the funding organization contract directly with a separate dev to signoff/QA, or would the code developer contract with someone to do this? Would there be a conflict of interest if the funding organization had someone on their staff sign/QA if that person was qualified?* Funding and how would we organize this? Since many in the audience were from the USA - there was discussion of getting a users group going again OR creating some sort of “non-profit like org” where libraries could pool funding towards projects. An organization like this would be able to apply for grants etc. Something where we could crowd-source funding and then fund a developer for a number of hours towards a project. *+1. I also am generally in favor of charging some nominal amount to attend KUG's/conferences. Even if it's just 25 USD--split the amount between the hosting organization for coffee and contribute some to Koha plumbing. US libraries typically can't just donate money to anything, but they certainly are used to paying attendance fees, and $25 or $50 is only a small fraction of the cost of flying and hotels.* . *And as long as I'm on the general subject of funding, I've often thought privately that there should be some way to help out the Horowhenua Library Trust for their work of holding the Koha keys. In an ideal world they should have a 10 million USD trust fund to aggressively support Koha.* My thoughts on some things that we can do in the USA. Have a hackfest in Athen’s Ohio next summer. Next year will be 10 years since Koha migrated to the US and I think it’s about time we have a hackfest here. *+1* I have briefly talked with Owen Leonard about putting this together for next summer... Gauge the interest of a North American Koha users group so at least we are having more of the community meeting together and sharing practices and ideas. Comments from Galen As far as a US or North American user group goes: I think a relaunch should start off with just the goal of hosting a US/NA conference, as it would /not/ be necessary to set up a nonprofit first to run conferences. *+1* We'd just need willing hosts and, if necessary, a firm willing and able to act as a fiscal agent. That's not to say that such a group couldn't pursue nonprofit status later, but we can get a lot of education and user-connecting done without ever having to have a formal organization. Brendan *Staccato comment #1: most of the Koha conferences to date (to the limited extent I'm qualified to comment on this) have been very technically focused. Someday there will begin to be more and more library staff attending, and those people will be more interested in end-user things. And someday I expect that KohaCon's will have different tracks, like code development, system administration and library staff interest. I think we need to start considering our audience soon. * *Staccato comment #2: apologies first, I've long considered the following, but I have some trouble expressing it coherently. Say with a larger project like plumbing, let's presume 250,000 USD is raised by some means by an independent organization, and by some fair and equitable method one of the major Koha support companies or independent developers is selected to do the work. As far as I know, all these qualified entities are already writing Koha code full-time, i.e., nobody has a lawn-care business for their daytime job and only write code when they get funded. So if we take our 250k and pay for a major rewrite, we're taking away from the development pool by substituting paid work for otherwise-compensated work already being done. Assuming we can equate the two types of work (improbable?), there is no net gain. In economic terms, this *somewhat analogous* to an opportunity cost-the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to achieve a different objective. As I mentioned at the beginning of this block, I struggle somewhat with what this means, if anything, but it would be nice to find a way for major funding developments to have an additive effect. * --
Re: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha.
Brendan, Excellent post and analysis of the current situation and the path forward for Koha, both for users and developers. I was just considering putting forth the idea of a Midwestern US Koha users and developers conference, perhaps just more of an informal get together, and gauging the level of interest. Regardless of the title, everyone would certainly be welcome. Although technology can facilitate distance collaborations, I don't believe it can ever substitute for face to face human interaction. After attending KohaCon 13, I can attest that great ideas came not just from the planned events of each day but also from the informal social gatherings in the evenings. I also learned a lot more in those seven days interacting with all of the excellent attendees than I ever would have from simply surfing Koha info on the Web. An Ohio hack fest is an awesome idea. What can we do to help? Plum Creek is willing to aid in the effort to get us together again as often as possible. I don't think a formal non-profit organization is needed in the short term to just get us together under one roof. I truly believe open source and Koha are the future of library automation worldwide and I am always willing to share my knowledge and enthusiasm for Koha with anyone willing to listen. Thanks, Joel Sasse Network Systems Administrator Plum Creek Library System 507-376-5803 -Original Message- From: koha-boun...@lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-boun...@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Brendan Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 9:39 PM To: Koha Devel; koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Subject: [Koha] Summary of Open session at KohaCon13 - with a focus on Funding the Future of Koha. Hello All - I'd like to give a summary of a open discussion that occurred at KohaCon14 in Reno. A spot opened up from a presenter not being able to attend - so I volunteered to lead a discussion on Funding the future of Koha. First we invited all current and past RM's of Koha up to the front of the room, to educate the audience on some of the plumbing needs in the code. When I use the term plumbing - I really mean portions of the code that need to be rewritten, updated for current coding practices, and a plan for placing newer technologies and practices into the code. Mainly plumbing = what do we need to get completed in the near future and how are we going to get that done. Many of these needs are larger projects that not a single organization or library can fund, as we would really need to dedicate an expert programmer some uninterrupted time to accomplish these goals. Not one support vendor can brunt the front of the plumbing needs that need to happen. We need to work together to fund this and we need to have a place and plan going forward now. Let's do this for Koha! Points that were raised. Many attendees felt that a clear plan on what path Koha should be developing towards would be a useful project. Although setting a ridged path is a difficult thing with a community like ours, maybe a place for everyone to get or stash ideas for future paths would be a good thing to organize. An important comment here from the attendees was that when someone is funding a development - they should not just fund the code, but also plan for time and funding for the Sign-Off process and the QA process. Funding and how would we organize this? Since many in the audience were from the USA - there was discussion of getting a users group going again OR creating some sort of non-profit like org where libraries could pool funding towards projects. An organization like this would be able to apply for grants etc. Something where we could crowd-source funding and then fund a developer for a number of hours towards a project. My thoughts on some things that we can do in the USA. Have a hackfest in Athen's Ohio next summer. Next year will be 10 years since Koha migrated to the US and I think it's about time we have a hackfest here. I have briefly talked with Owen Leonard about putting this together for next summer and would love for help and encourage those from overseas to join us. (Also a commitment here that we will be sending a few employees to the France Hackfest in March and will continue to do this every year that we can - that also being right around a feature freeze for releases it's important to have a solid week dedicated to hacking koha only) Gauge the interest of a North American Koha users group so at least we are having more of the community meeting together and sharing practices and ideas. Comments from Galen As far as a US or North American user group goes: I think a relaunch should start off with just the goal of hosting a US/NA conference, as it would /not/ be necessary to set up a nonprofit first to run conferences. We'd just need willing hosts and, if necessary, a firm willing and able to act as a fiscal agent. That's not to say that such a group couldn't pursue nonprofit status later, but we can get a lot of
