[Koha-devel] Koha and Qvarn, a suggestion (also too long for anyone to finish reading)

[Jonathan Druart]

Hi Lars,

Since 2010, a lot of things have changed and are currently going on.
We are moving our code from the legacy C4 to the new Koha namespace.
It might interest you to know that as I am currently moving the patron code
(see bug 16846). I personally don't thing it's conceivable to implement
Qvarn before we finish such job. Indeed the patron's info are retrieved
from different places and that will complicate its integration. Moreover it
will be much easier to do it when this rewrite is finished (it will depend
on the time it takes to make it in, it's hard to find testers for the
refactoring patches).
I don't think I understand all what it means to plug Qvarn and Koha, my
first questions would be:
What kind of data are we suppose to store into Qvarn. All the patron's
data? only a few personal data?
As Reed said: will it mean the patron's info will no longer be retrieved
from SQL reports?
How many times would it take to implement such changes?

Cheers,
Jonathan

On Fri, 25 Nov 2016 at 15:56 Lars Wirzenius <liw at qvarnlabs.com> wrote:

> Hi, Koha developers,
>
> some of you may remember me from the Debian packaging of Koha I made
> in 2010 for Catalyst IT. I've never looked much at the actual code
> base of Koha, but one thing that even a quick grep reveals is that SQL
> code is sprinkled all over the code base. To me, this indicates that
> the application code ("business logic") and the way data is stored are
> closely coupled, and that's generally not a good thing. Among other
> things, if there's a need so change the database schema, or database
> engine, the whole code base might be affected.
>
> In my current job we develop a storage system (roughly, "database, but
> with better access control") with an emphasis on privacy. Our software
> is free software released under the Affero GPL, version 3 or later. I
> suggest that our software (called Qvarn) would be worth considering
> for Koha.
>
> A summary of my impression of the situation:
>
> * Koha stores very sensitive information about people's reading
>   habits.
>
> * In the EU the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is in
>   effect (with a transition period until some time in 2014), which
>   requires everyone who collects or stores personal information to
>   take good care so the data doesn't leak and violate people's
>   privacy. Koha, or at least libraries using Koha, would seem to fall
>   under this (IANAL, TINLA, AYOL).
>
> * At minimum, a "privacy impact assessment" needs to be made.
>   Basically, think about what the happens to the people whose data it
>   is that gets leaked. (Best to assume it will be.)
>
> * Koha stores all its data (including the personal stuff) in
>   MySQL/MariaDB. There is no clean abstraction layer, which means SQL
>   is all over the code base, making things harder to change. I think
>   it would be good for Koha to add an abstraction layer even if Koha
>   stays with MySQL.
>
> * Qvarn was designed from the ground up with privacy and security in
>   mind. It is meant to be the least weak link in the chain to protect
>   privacy of the data it stores. It's still under active development,
>   and doesn't have all the planned features yet. It's backed by my new
>   company, QvarnLabs, and is in production use already, storing around
>   a million personal identities.
>
> * Qvarn provides a RESTful HTTP(S) JSON API, meaning there's no
>   per-client/per-user session state on the Qvarn side. Makes it really
>   easy to use, from the client, in my opinion. All data is in JSON
>   form, which also makes things easier to use, in my opinion. It's
>   conceptually JSON objects, not tables/columns. Qvarn uses Postgres
>   behind the scenes, at least for now, but that's not visible to API
>   clients (read: we could replace it with individual files on disk and
>   you'd not notice).
>
> * Qvarn requires the use of Gluu (see gluu.org) for authentication and
>   authorization. Gluu is an identity management server, which is also
>   free software. We aim to hide Gluu entirely behind the Qvarn API,
>   and already mostly do that, so it's not something you need to know
>   much about, except that operationally it's a bit tricky, since it's
>   harder to deploy than Qvarn itself it (Qvarn comes as a .deb).
>
> Here's my thoughts about Koha using Qvarn:
>
> * First step would be to change Koha to have a suitable abstraction
>   layer for storing data. I imagine this will be a big job.
>
> * Second step would be to model the data Koha stores in Qvarn resource
>   types, i.e., decide which types of records should be and what they
>   should contain.
>
> * Third step is ...
>
> * Fourth step is profit.
>
> Benefits to Koha as far as I can see:
>
> * Abstraction layer: cleaner code, easier database related changes in
>   the future, possibly a better test suite as a side effect.
>
> * Qvarn: more privacy protection for user data, maybe (this is my
>   highly personal and biased opinion) a nicer way to store/access the
>   data.
>
> What do you think? Is this something that the Koha community might
> want? I don't want to waste your time or anyone else's time if it's
> not interesting. However, if it is interesting, QvarnLabs is willing
> to work on making sure Qvarn is good for Koha.
>
> Note: though both Qvarn and Koha are developed/supported by companies,
> they're free software and also free to use. This is not unlike Koha
> itself.
>
> I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, preferably on the
> koha-devel list.
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