[Koha-devel] Re: Summary of today's IRC meeting, Koha 3.4 observations

[Darrell Ulm]

Hello All,

The following is not a positive or negative observation of the Koha 3.4 release
as I think the goals set for Koha 3.4 are obviously very positive.

I am just stating the obvious technical implications to any who may not know:

I just wanted to state that with the goals of the 3.4 proposal
at http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:rm3.4proposal
Koha 3.4 will be *quite* different from any other independent branches of Koha

3.0.x and/or 3.2 based versions of Koha. (This is of course *very* normal for
most all software upgrades

(3.0 -> 3.2 -> 3.4 -> etc.)
\
--> other branches ...

Especially with the technical changes to the following:

"
C4::Search
(XML out of circulation code)
...
HTML::Template::Pro -> to -> Template::Toolkit
...
Database Abstraction
MySQL & Postgres Abstraction Layer
"

All of these are obviously very desired improvements as is the following
improvement

"
Packaging
Debian packaging for 3.4 is a major goal
"
(*This* is just great! Think of the THOUSANDS of libraries that will download
the Official Koha 3.4 community version exclusively once it is a simple Debian
Linux package, and install it with ease! This is excellent and very important to
include! How many libraries in the future will be downloading the 3.4 community
version?

and each of these will make Koha 3.4 a great ILS, and the performance and
abstraction are key.

Again, correct me if I am wrong, but many would say that these changes will make
Koha so different from other independent branches (choose your favorite) that
these other versions will have little future compatibility with the official
Koha 3.4 community version. Correct me if I this is not quite correct, as in a
sense, I am basically posing this statement as a *question*.

These are *great* changes and *great* ideas and kudos to everyone who is leading
the way on this!

-Darrell Ulm

[k***@joetho.com]

I think Darrell is speculating about compatibility with other ILS platforms,
as libraries regularly migrate from whatever those ILS' into Koha. It would
be prudent to give that compatibility some attention, perhaps even establish
a means of easily converting one system to another.

Is that kind of what you are talking about in the last part of your post,
Darrell?

-Thanks and tgif,
-Joe Tholen / SEKLS / Kansas

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 4:17 PM
Subject: [Koha-devel] Re: Summary of today's IRC meeting,Koha
3.4 observations
<snip>
Again, correct me if I am wrong, but many would say that
these changes will make Koha so different from other
independent branches (choose your favorite) that these other
versions will have little future compatibility with the
official Koha 3.4 community version. Correct me if I this is
not quite correct, as in a sense, I am basically posing this
statement as a *question*.
These are *great* changes and *great* ideas and kudos to
everyone who is leading the way on this!
-Darrell Ulm