[Koha-devel] Who is Live DVD manager of version 3.12.x?

[Mark Tompsett]

Greetings,

I am replying on the devel mailing list, because this isn’t a general koha 
user issue. This is a technical issue. It’s a question of who will support 
it? Who will update it? Who will maintain it? Who will document it? Who will 
get blamed for it? Who will be responsible for it?


> Don't conclude that Live DVD's are bad idea.

There is a time and place for everything. However, you have gone against 
community opinions. Running a production system from a Live DVD is a bad 
thing! Installing is different, in that it could be as if it were installed 
like packages, and thus supporting and updating are fine. However, people 
don’t read. You have to assume the worst, and the worst is people will use a 
Live DVD in production, suffer horrible data losses and call Koha inferior, 
because of the Live DVD experience. We know Koha is better than that. We 
have to offer a Koha that is better than that. We have to train users better 
than that. We have to document better than that (even if the users don't 
appreciate what wonderful documentation is available).


> Without a Live DVD Koha is a hard nut to break, majority of LIS
> professionals are not Linux experts and they can't try Koha.

Vimal, this is a poor argument. There is lots of documentation on using 
Linux. There is Koha documentation. If someone wishes to try it, if they don’t 
have the time to read and understand the instructions, then they aren’t 
ready to use it. You’ll note that the instructions on the Koha wiki are 
simple. How hard is it to cut and paste commands to get a working Koha?


> No need to release Live DVD with every version updates.
> One live DVD for entire 3.12.x release cycle is enough.

This is patently false! 3.12.3 was a security release. It MUST be burned. 
People will not think of upgrading.


> Koha installed inside Live DVD by following Koha packages, users can
> upgrade to new version updates by executing commands or running update
> manager.

Additionally, when people down load a Live DVD, they assume it is already 
current. Why would they upgrade?! You must burn the current release, not 
just 3.x.0, but 3.x.1, 3.x.2, etc.

Is it so difficult to burn monthly? You already spent the effort figuring 
out how to make the Live DVD act like a packages installation. You can 
probably replicate the steps in under an hour – three if your processing 
power is pathetic.


> I would like to listen other members opinions about this matter.

Don’t say this unless you mean that you will also heed our advice too. I 
apologize if this comes across as harsh, but your whining over a title has 
aggravated some including myself.

GPML,
Mark Tompsett