My gift creation this holiday season is going to be so much easier than in the past – thank you Flickr & Snapfish!!

On first look, it’s pretty neat, but it’s missing an important feature – the ability to add your comments to the RT. This morning I saw a cute post by a library geek dad I know, it was a link to a T-shirt that I thought other geek dad’s might want to see – but the tweet said “I’m so getting this” so when I re-tweeted it looked like I (not a dad) wanted the shirt.

I’m also not seeing my RTs on the my Twitter homepage or in Adium – I only see them on my profile page on Twitter – which may be because the feature is still in beta – but at the same time, how do I really RT and share with my friends?? Hopefully this will all become more clear as I play some more.

Awesome new feature!!

Typically, a revamped vendor product line doesn’t result in a flurry of open letters to the community and lengthy message threads on mailing lists and blogs. But LibLime’s recent announcement of Enterprise Koha has generated just such a response, prompting many to reexamine the sometimes fluid roles that vendors, customers, and code contributors play in the open source software community.

He goes on to mention several of the more popular threads/posts/emails that are floating around on the issue. But what I think Josh is missing in his article is the real heart of what open source is – and that’s the community around it. Now, don’t get me wrong as an active member in the Koha community (both because ByWater wants me to be and because I love it!) – I sometimes want to reach through my computer screen and wring someone’s neck – but that’s just because everyone loves Koha so much and wants to see what’s best for the software and the community.

So, as I said, I had to reply to the article and my reply can be read on that article itself or right here:

To follow up on Owen’s comment I had a friend explain it in a great way – I hope he doesn’t mind me stealing his words

“The easiest way to explain this is, you know in word processing there is a feature you can see the changes someone made? Well if I can see the changes I made, and the changes you made, then combining the two is much easier. Imagine now you and I take a half finished novel, that we have been working collaboratively on, I keep publishing my changes incrementally, but you instead go away and work for a year and then hand back a book, with 300 new pages, and edits to almost all the other pages.”

As an author myself this was a great way to explain the situation to me – like Owen said there is no if about it – eventually the two versions of Koha will be so out of sync that it will be too much work for anyone to merge them back together.

That is why a call was made on the Koha mailing list for LibLime to share their code in a public Git repository – allowing developers who have time to make the merges incrementally instead of trying to do it a month or two or twelve down the road.

All that aside – open source is not just about software or licensing or code – it’s about community and an open source application developed in isolation isn’t really an open source application. It’s the community that drives open source, it’s the community that keeps open source alive, and it’s the community that took Koha to where it is 10 years after a small library trust in NZ decided to share their ILS with the world.

This last note is very important to repeat – it’s one I say over and over when I teach open source to librarians. Open source isn’t just about the software – it isn’t just about getting things for free – it’s about being part of a community of software users and developers and fans who all pour their heart and soul into the project to make it its very best. And that is why there is so much uproar and that is why there is so much being written about this topic – because people love Koha and want to see what’s best of it.

Just my 2 cents – take it or leave it.

[update] The official company opinion from ByWater Solutions was added after I posted my comment on my own. I want to add that here:

Since the release of Enterprise Koha, ByWater Solutions has done its best to stay neutral with the hopes that a quickly deteriorating situation would eventually turn around for the better. We held this hope not for the sake of the Koha community, for its stability is not under question, but for a fellow support vendor that seemed to be going through somewhat of an identity crisis. Unfortunately for all involved, this vendor chose a path that has stirred up much controversy, mainly surrounding the fact that their version of our community software is no longer open source. Some say it is; most say it is not. The very simple question we pose is this: Can one obtain Enterprise Koha without paying a vendor to install and support it. If the answer is no, then the software is very clearly and undeniably proprietary; and those who use it are a victims of vendor lock in. Unfortunately many of these customers chose Koha to avoid exactly that.

Regardless of the fundamental wrongs surrounding this idea, ByWater Solutions has seen it as inevitable growing pains for a developing software community and has continued with business as usual. However, there is one trend we are beginning to see that has inspired the writing of this post, and that is the growing vilification of the community and the martyrdom of the vendor who has left it. We have been recently compared to religious extremists, hell bent on banishing anyone who is less than pure from our rigid society. This is an unjust picture to be painting because in actuality, we are comprised of very passionate people, some of whom have poured their heart and soul into this project in many cases without compensation.

We think it is important when reporting on a topic such as this that elicits such strong emotions to research all areas surrounding it. An important fact not yet discussed is that the developers of Koha are not the only ones having issues with Koha being forked. Customers of the company that has forked the code are also feeling the pain. Many customers are furious that they are not getting what they signed on for and are having a hard time getting the patches they want implemented in their systems. In one instance, a customer was taken off of the company’s user list for voicing their concerns about the numerous “process changes” even though they were still under contract with the company.

The recent change in policies and participation from this vendor has prompted us to make it clear to librarians that ByWater Solutions is in complete alignment with the true ideas and values of open source. Open source is about so much more than the source code and the license; it is about the community around it. It is for this reason that the community is in an uproar. It is a real shame this major contributor has pulled away from all community participation, communication and general niceties, but thanks to the community model we will only grow stronger from these growing pains. That being said, ByWater Solutions will continue to contribute 100% of their development, continue to participate in as many community activities, meetings, and day to day chats, and continue to deliver the best service to those seeking support from a company that has built its business model around our customer’s and the community’s needs.

[/update]

Technorati Tags: koha, open source, libraries, integrated library systems

So a quick update. I’m doing great. The new job is great, the book is coming along, the Library Mashups book is selling great and the book signing is coming up at Internet Librarian in Monterey later this month. For those who will be going, I can’t wait to hang out with some librarian friends! Working from home is great, but it can get lonely some times

Now, I must run and give a webinar on open source software for libraries for the Tampa Bay Library Consortium.

Keep an eye out for news from me as I learn the ropes

I have to agree with this quote – especially after reading the comments on the recent article about Blacklight in The Chronicle of Higher Education and then the comment summary post on The Wired Campus (also from The Chronicle).

First off – this is supposed to be an article about the success of a library system in creating an amazing system to improve services to their patrons. After reading the chapter in Library Mashups that covered the Blacklight project I fell in love! What an amazing OPAC with amazing functionality. And it’s a chapter about librarians doing something instead of complaining about how it’s the fault of patrons and educators – not the broken system.

I don’t understand how it is that library professionals can’t see the simple fact that Google is not the enemy! And expecting patrons to know how to search systems the way we’re trained is just crazy! If they all knew how to do what we do then we wouldn’t have jobs! That said we want library patrons to at least be able to find resources in our libraries – and our OPACs are broken – so much so that in some libraries they’re useless.

I had a friend who was searching her local library for a copy of The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and couldn’t find it – she did a title search, she did an author search, and she did a keyword search – but the system in question (and many more that she tried) had most of those words listed as stop words. What if you have a patron searching for It by Stephen King? Or the O magazine? These are searches I do when demoing Koha because Koha can find these titles when many other systems can’t.

I’ve gone into a rant now – but my point is – stop blaming others – stop accepting the status quo and go out there and support the libraries who are working to fix things for our patrons – support and use open source and you’ll be shocked at how everything you thought about library automation changes.

When patrons of the Garden Street garage in Hoboken, N.J., went to retrieve their vehicles in August, they were surprised that the robotic garage that had so efficiently parked their cars until then had seemingly turned against them, trapping their cars for several days.

The fully automated garage didn’t suffer from rusty rotors or gears; it crashed because of an expired software license and a dispute between the software provider and Hoboken.

First – I had on idea that garages like this existed – second – if this isn’t an argument for open source – I don’t know what is!! How scary is it that a software license issue can cause a problem like this?

Anyway, when people say “open source is too risky” point them to these two examples – and many more like it. The fact is that all software is risky – handing our cars, money, memories, and lives over to computers is risky – I’d rather know that the software on those machines is of an open nature.

There’s a long list of features that we’ve wanted to develop for our members. Giving our members a way to celebrate the creativity of their fellow members has always been high on that list. Today, we’re thrilled to launch our newest feature: galleries.

For whatever you find interesting, fascinating, or mind-blowing on Flickr, galleries are a way to curate up to 18 public photos or videos of your fellow members into one place around a theme, an idea or just because.

Learn more by reading the help on Galleries on Flickr. You can also check out my start at a gallery of libraries I would love to visit some day.

I use WordPress for my book sites and for any other sites I’m asked to work on. I love using WordPress as a CMS, it’s so much less clunky than some of the other options – and doesn’t take a lot to learn (even when they upgrade and move things around). This fall I’ll be teaching a few classes on how to use WordPress for your entire library website – but for now I found this awesome list that can help you get started if you want to go it alone. The post entitled 300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress Expert has so many awesome resources – including a section on using WordPress as your CMS.

If you’re using WordPress for your library site already, let me know and I’ll be sure to feature you in my class

The article with my quote (and my others) in it has been published on ITWorld.

One delicious example of a spontaneous relationship that worked is the one between Koha’s Cormack and Nicole Engard (http://web2learning.net), Koha’s documentation manager and soon to start a new day job as director of open source education at ByWater Solutions. Engard joined the Koha community in 2008. “I was excited to be a part of something so awesome — and rare in the library world — but a bit nervous about jumping into something that was so well established,” she says. Cormack, one of Koha’s original developers, took Engard under his wing. “He taught me the ropes, he never, ever said I had a stupid question. He never ignored me. He has always been patient and willing to walk me through things.” Distance didn’t matter; Cormack is in New Zealand, and Engard is on the U.S. east coast. “There is a huge time difference for us; he is often helping at midnight his time,” she says with heartfelt appreciation.

Read the entire article on ITWorld.

I am sorry for the delay, I was out of town the past few days. Per our meeting on IRC earlier this week (Foundation-forming Meeting, 15 September 2009), I have put together a survey with some foundation forming questions.

• English: http://opensource.web2learning.net/limesurvey/index.php?sid=68645&lang=en
• French: http://opensource.web2learning.net/limesurvey/index.php?sid=68645&lang=fr

The survey was created using the open source survey tool – LimeSurvey – and so it requires that you have JS enabled. If you don’t – you can use one of these PDF versions to view the questions and just email your answers.

• English: http://opensource.web2learning.net/Koha-English.pdf
• French: http://opensource.web2learning.net/Koha-French.pdf

The reason I chose this survey tool was because it would allow for multiple languages, and it allows for some powerful analytics that I can then share with everyone – most obviously it’s open source

Also – you will see that when ranking options you have to rank all options – so just put the options you don’t care about towards the end of your ranking.

This survey will be active for 2 weeks and then I will put up the final survey – that gives us two weeks to do our research.

This survey is open to any and all members of the Koha community – which means anyone with an interest in the future of Koha – whether they are using the software or active in development or not.

Please feel free to forward these links on and share with others.

Thanks
Nicole C. Engard
Koha Documentation Manager

[originally posted here: http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=vote_in_prelim_survey]