[Koha-devel] Country-specific forks?

Jonathan Druart jonathan.druart at bugs.koha-community.org
Thu Feb 11 13:38:02 CET 2016


Yes, it will be a limitation.
For the signatures, we will have to maintain the plugins and version them.

2016-02-11 12:30 GMT+00:00 Julian Maurice <julian.maurice at biblibre.com>:
> 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
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Koha-devel mailing list
>>>>> Koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
>>>>> http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
>>>>> website : http://www.koha-community.org/
>>>>> git : http://git.koha-community.org/
>>>>> bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Julian Maurice <julian.maurice at biblibre.com>
>>>> BibLibre
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>>>> bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Julian Maurice <julian.maurice at biblibre.com>
> BibLibre


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