[Koha-devel] Country-specific forks?

[Viktor.Sarge at regionhalland.se]

I actually think a more general plugin system would both increase the attraction of new libraries and keep existing ones from wanting to fork. Being a firm believer in running the community code it is sometimes frustrating that key features might take years to ge into master. All ways that makes it easy to run standard Koha while still altering the behaviour is therefore welcome. 

(At the same time I'm a little bit afraid of a future where the ones with resources make their own addons since it's easier and the community codebase never gets the chance to implement good features in a generic way. A bit like "yes it's not very good, but that's why you'll also want to buy this extra discovery system that we happen to sell as well" that seems to happen in some proprietary products.)

Kind regards/ Viktor Sarge
Senior regional library development officer 

Skickat från min iPhone

> 11 feb. 2016 kl. 10:38 skrev Magnus Enger <magnus at enger.priv.no>:
> 
> 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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