[Koha-devel] Open Source or Free Software?

[Rachel Hamilton-Williams]

Hi

> I suspect the main reason why koha is described as "open source" is that
> NZ seems to be one of the few places with a national organisation for
> "open source" but not one for "free software" promotion.

No not really - the NZOSS society wasn't really featuring at the time we made 
the decision on what to call it.

I am aware that almost always there is cost to a library to implement Koha - 
particularly to a big public library (always our goal). So we thought that Open 
Source was more "accurate" than Free.  We also are aware that large 
organisations very much evaluate software on a "you get what you pay for" basis 
- so we thought that *not* saying Koha was Free might at least get us a look 
in.

At the time we were the first Open Source library system - but not the first 
Free one - so to get that Kudos, we wanted to be Open Source.


Cheers
Rachel_____________________________________________________________

Rachel Hamilton-Williams             Katipo Communications            
WEBMISTRESS                          ph  021 389 128 or +64 04 934 1285 
mailto:rachel at katipo.co.nz           PO Box 12487, Wellington
http://www.katipo.co.nz              New Zealand
Koha Open Source Library System
http://www.koha.org