[Koha-devel] Country-specific forks?

[Julian Maurice]

Problems that quickly come to mind with this solution:
* It will prevent 2 different plugins to redefine the same subroutine
* If the subroutine "signature" change, the compatibility with existing
plugins will be broken


Le 11/02/2016 13:14, Jonathan Druart a écrit :
> A really easy solution to implement would be to watch a directory (say
> plugins) during the very end of the compilation time.
> Using something like Sub::Override
> (http://search.cpan.org/~ovid/Sub-Override-0.09/lib/Sub/Override.pm)
> would allow the plugin to redefine behaviors.
> 
> 2016-02-11 11:47 GMT+00:00 Kyle Hall <kyle.m.hall at gmail.com>:
>> Totally agree with this. All we need to do is imagine where we want Koha to
>> be pluggable! So far we have the ability create Report/Tool plugins,
>> arbitrary file to MARC conversion plugins, and I also have submitted a patch
>> to make EDIFACT pluggable ( once it gets it ). The first step is to know
>> what behavior needs to be modified, then make that behavior pluggable. It's
>> almost a chicken or the egg issue. I suppose what we need to do is watch for
>> new patches for very region specific features ( such as Norwegian patron DB
>> ) and suggest a path to plug-ability rather pushing the code itself into
>> Koha.
>>
>> Kyle
>>
>> http://www.kylehall.info
>> ByWater Solutions ( http://bywatersolutions.com )
>> Meadville Public Library ( http://www.meadvillelibrary.org )
>> Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )
>> Mill Run Technology Solutions ( http://millruntech.com )
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 5:24 AM, Julian Maurice
>> <julian.maurice at biblibre.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> +1 to "one Koha to rule them all"
>>> +1000 to a more powerful plugin system!
>>> Having a plugin system to build custom tools and reports is great, but I
>>> think we could (and should) go further.
>>>
>>> Le 11/02/2016 10:38, Magnus Enger a écrit :
>>>> Dear Community!
>>>>
>>>> A quote from another thread on koha-devel:
>>>>
>>>> "I look at the code, and beside wondering why that custom feature
>>>> [Norwegian patron DB] is so profoundly imbricated into master Koha, I
>>>> was wondering what is not working."
>>>>
>>>> I think this raises an interesting question. Should we let features
>>>> into Koha that are only of interest to libraries in one or a small
>>>> number of countries? Or should we confine those features to
>>>> country-specific forks?
>>>>
>>>> The quote above implies (I think) that support for the Norwegian
>>>> patron DB should be in a country-specific fork.
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, the project implementing Koha for public libraries
>>>> in Turkey has been criticized for not integrating their customizations
>>>> into Koha. To which someone replied that the customizations were not
>>>> of much interest to libraries outside Turkey.
>>>>
>>>> So do we want one Koha to rule them all, including country-specific
>>>> features, or do we want one fork per country?
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I prefer the former. In the case of the Norwegian patron
>>>> DB, that is one of the 2-3 "must have" features that all Norwegian
>>>> public libraries will be looking for when they are choosing between
>>>> Koha or some proprietary system. Should we be telling them "Nope, you
>>>> can't use the real Koha, but you can use this fork over here"? That
>>>> will not increase their confidence in choosing Koha, I suspect.
>>>>
>>>> That said, I do think some principles should be applied:
>>>>
>>>> - Strive to make even the country specific features as general as
>>>> possible, so that others can use them as starting points for similar
>>>> features.
>>>>
>>>> - Strive to make the features as unobtrusive as possible.
>>>>
>>>> And maybe, in time, the plugin system can be made powerful enough that
>>>> it can handle some or all of the country-specific features?
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Magnus Enger
>>>> Libriotech
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Julian Maurice <julian.maurice at biblibre.com>
>>> BibLibre
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>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Julian Maurice <julian.maurice at biblibre.com>
BibLibre