Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Hi Erik, Thanks for that suggestion - its a good idea. Cheers Jo. Sent from my ASUS Eee Pad Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu wrote: At Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:51:11 +1300, Joann Ransom wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. […] Hi Joann, The Software Freedom Law Center (http://softwarefreedom.org) might be able to help as well: The Software Freedom Law Center provides pro-bono legal services to developers of Free, Libre, and Open Source Software. They list trademark defense as one of their services. best, Erik Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Hi Mike, So sorry its taken so long to get back to you Sent from my ASUS Eee Pad Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com wrote: Joann, This is horrible news, and you have my sympathy. It's very strange to think how recently we all thought of LibLime as being among the Good Guys. My position on this is that the name is probably not worth as much as it feels that it's worth. I can understand why as the originators you would have a strong emotional tie to it, but in the end a name-change may not hurt much at all (and might even help, judging by the frequency with which large organisations spend millions to change their names). Oracle owns the name OpenOffice, but no-one much cares and LibreOffice has replaced it in the world's affections. So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. JMHO. -- Mike. On 22 November 2011 00:51, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
An update on the situation http://koha-community.org/update-2/ Chris
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
LibLime A Division of PTFS, Inc. Main Office 11501 Huff Court North Bethesda, Maryland 20895 tel: (301) 654-8088 Ext. 127 fax: (301) 654-5789 email: kohai...@liblime.com Twitter: @liblime How about we all contact them? ;) Rob 2011/11/23 Wilfred Drew dr...@tc3.edu: Has anybody contacted the company? A sales rep? PR department? Bill Drew -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Parker, Anson (adp6j) Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 12:09 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community This is pretty offensive on the liblime part, perhaps not surprising, but certainly low browŠ I think best practices are to 1) blog it up 2) get a list of their clients and email them all to let them know what a bunch of schmarmy brats they are working withŠ make it hurt financially. It's not libel or slander as long as it is true. Going to New Zealand to play a legal game like this is way below the belt. -ap On 11/23/11 10:32 AM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: Just to make it easier, use the following link to read the article and then donate via PayPal -- http://bit.ly/rBeWN0 Open source software is about liberty, not gratis. --ELM
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On Nov 23, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote: LibLime A Division of PTFS, Inc. Main Office 11501 Huff Court North Bethesda, Maryland 20895 tel: (301) 654-8088 Ext. 127 fax: (301) 654-5789 email: kohai...@liblime.com Twitter: @liblime How about we all contact them? ;) Our contacting them isn't as effective as their customers contacting them. You can get a list of known Koha installations from lib-web-cats: http://www.librarytechnology.org/map.pl?ILS=Koha Which lists over 1200 sites ... the Library Journal, when they covered the purchase of LibLime last year, only mentioned that they had about 1/2 of those (140 libraries thought PTFS, 500 from LibLime): http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6714841.html Although, I don't know if the lib-web-cats is libraries, or whole library systems. You could get specific names of LibLime customers by looking through their website for testimonials scattered on the site, or get their more recent clients through the press releases in their 'news' feed: http://www.liblime.com/news- -Joe
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Kåre Fiedler Christiansen quotes PTFS/LibLime is prepared to transfer the trademark to a non-profit Koha Foundation with the provision that the Foundation hold the trademark in trust and not enforce it against any individual, organization, or company who chooses to promote services around Koha in New Zealand. PTFS/LibLime encourages a direct dialog with Koha stakeholders to determine an equitable solution for the disposition of the trademark that serves the best interests of the libraries who use Koha. That organization has existed since the start of Koha. It is called the Horowhenua Library Trust. That sounds promising. Has LibLime seen reason, or am I misinterpreting things? As much reason as somebody who comes to steal your belongings and then offers them to hand them back to you may be at some stage. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On 23 November 2011 06:32, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? I'm wondering if cultural property rights can be use to over turn a trademark. Not only is koha a maori word it is a cultural concept. -- Andrew Cunningham Senior Project Manager, Research and Development Vicnet State Library of Victoria Australia andr...@vicnet.net.au lang.supp...@gmail.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
I'd be inclined to have a quite chat with Maori political activists and see what their feleings are on non-New Zealand companies applying for trademark status on Maori words in New Zealand. -- Andrew Cunningham Senior Project Manager, Research and Development Vicnet State Library of Victoria Australia andr...@vicnet.net.au lang.supp...@gmail.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On 24 November 2011 14:52, Andrew Cunningham lang.supp...@gmail.com wrote: I'd be inclined to have a quite chat with Maori political activists and see what their feleings are on non-New Zealand companies applying for trademark status on Maori words in New Zealand. -- The short answer is, they aren't very happy http://www.waatea603am.co.nz/News/2011/November/Ministry-allows-koha-grab Interestingly enough, being only 3 days out from a general election, it has been picked up by at least one political party also http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA/S00484/us-software-company-trademarks-maori-word-koha-in-nz.htm I really do hope Liblime/PTFS follow through and assign the trademark application to Horowhenua Library Trust, as the community elected repository of community property. It would go a long way to putting this whole episode behind us. Chris
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Joann, This is horrible news, and you have my sympathy. It's very strange to think how recently we all thought of LibLime as being among the Good Guys. My position on this is that the name is probably not worth as much as it feels that it's worth. I can understand why as the originators you would have a strong emotional tie to it, but in the end a name-change may not hurt much at all (and might even help, judging by the frequency with which large organisations spend millions to change their names). Oracle owns the name OpenOffice, but no-one much cares and LibreOffice has replaced it in the world's affections. So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. JMHO. -- Mike. On 22 November 2011 00:51, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Hi Joann, Have you considered sending this to some of the tech podcasts? I think both the Command-Line podcast (http://thecommandline.net/) and Linux Outlaws (http://sixgun.org/linuxoutlaws/) would be great audiences and receptive to this story. I'm a regular listener of both and if you want me to contact them so they would get it from a a regular listener who I'd be more than happy to forward your message with some personal notes. (And the paypal link too ;) ). Jon Gorman On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Joann, I was recently in New Zealand and heard Aroha Mead speak on the legal protection of Maori heritage. Her area of expertise is indigenous culture and intellectual property issues. Given that Koha is a significant Maori word [1] with cultural meaning, it may be defendable on that basis. I hope you are also bringing this to the attention of folks in NZ who can make that argument. kc [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koha_%28custom%29 Quoting Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust. -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Joann, A name change may not be necessary. For what it's worth, a long time ago in 2000 when I was getting my Avanti project off the ground, a group in Germany that I was unaware of developing an information retrieval database system called Avanti objected to the name I had chosen for my project because of the conflict. We eventually agreed to let me keep the Avanti name for my project with me placing a link to their work on my wesite explaining that these were different projects, which I did for some years. I no longer do so now, but there have been no objections, probably as I am pretty much on the fringes of anything right now. I am still shocked though, that LibLime would do something like this and actually persue it as a legal matter. As one who has been involved in and observed open source software in libraries from Day One, I am shaking my head here. Peter Schlumpf www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com Sent: Nov 22, 2011 3:41 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community Joann, This is horrible news, and you have my sympathy. It's very strange to think how recently we all thought of LibLime as being among the Good Guys. My position on this is that the name is probably not worth as much as it feels that it's worth. I can understand why as the originators you would have a strong emotional tie to it, but in the end a name-change may not hurt much at all (and might even help, judging by the frequency with which large organisations spend millions to change their names). Oracle owns the name OpenOffice, but no-one much cares and LibreOffice has replaced it in the world's affections. So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. JMHO. -- Mike. On 22 November 2011 00:51, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
At Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:51:11 +1300, Joann Ransom wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. […] Hi Joann, The Software Freedom Law Center (http://softwarefreedom.org) might be able to help as well: The Software Freedom Law Center provides pro-bono legal services to developers of Free, Libre, and Open Source Software. They list trademark defense as one of their services. best, Erik Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/. pgpWIG8zg2J7D.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. Two things which may not be widely known here: 1. HLT was the original commissioner and I believe they have been using Koha continuously in delivering their library service since then. If they of all people are not allowed to share control of the name, then basically no FOSS project name is safe for its users. Ever. 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? So, please give generously to HLT's ratbag-repelling fund. There are wider issues at stake for users and coders for libraries. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
On 22 November 2011 19:32, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. Two things which may not be widely known here: 1. HLT was the original commissioner and I believe they have been using Koha continuously in delivering their library service since then. If they of all people are not allowed to share control of the name, then basically no FOSS project name is safe for its users. Ever. 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? Just for the record ... I find these arguments, and the similar ones that others have made, compelling. So I withdraw my earlier suggestion of shrugging and letting LibLime have the name. Sorry about that. -- Mike.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
You might also contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to see if they might be willing/able to help: https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance -Shaun On 11/22/11 9:10 AM, Jon Gorman wrote: Hi Joann, Have you considered sending this to some of the tech podcasts? I think both the Command-Line podcast (http://thecommandline.net/) and Linux Outlaws (http://sixgun.org/linuxoutlaws/) would be great audiences and receptive to this story. I'm a regular listener of both and if you want me to contact them so they would get it from a a regular listener who I'd be more than happy to forward your message with some personal notes. (And the paypal link too ;) ). Jon Gorman On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Joann Ransomjran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib articlehttp://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timelinehttp://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualizationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust. -- Shaun D. Ellis Digital Library Interface Developer Firestone Library, Princeton University voice: 609.258.1698 | sha...@princeton.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Great idea Shaun! -- Tod Robbins iSchool GSA Crew MLIS Candidate 2012 University of Washington
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
FWIW, the discussion on hackernews http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3264378 On Nov 21, 2011, at 4:51 PM, Joann Ransom wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
Glad you came 'round, Mike. I would not suggest that they roll over and back down. A name is a very important thing. Try asking Coca-Cola to give up theirs. In reading this news I was angry enough to the point of writing an open letter to LibLime and this forum stating my views and asking LibLime for an explanation of why they are trying to take legal posession of the name Koha. I became especially after looking at their web site where I have so far found absolutely NO reference to HLT or where Koha came from. Nor to the open source software community in libraries from which it came. I decided not to send it. Yet. I don't want to cause problems, but I will if it's ok with the HLT folks. I have very strong feelings about this, because I have my own project, Avanti. I would feel very offended if a third party would hijack mine in this way and not give me any credit for what I have done. This is a big, big thing. I have also watched from the sidelines Koha develop into what it is, so I know where it comes from. I remember at ALA 2000 in Chicago when Tim O'Reilly graciously gave those of us with open source projects in libraries space in the O'Reilly booth to show off our work. There were only a few of us back then and Koha wasn't on the radar yet. LibLime is a Johnny-come-lately in this grizzled old person's mind. I am so disappointed in LibLime that they would sink to something like this. Peter Schlumpf http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com -Original Message- From: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com Sent: Nov 22, 2011 1:39 PM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community On 22 November 2011 19:32, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. Two things which may not be widely known here: 1. HLT was the original commissioner and I believe they have been using Koha continuously in delivering their library service since then. If they of all people are not allowed to share control of the name, then basically no FOSS project name is safe for its users. Ever. 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? Just for the record ... I find these arguments, and the similar ones that others have made, compelling. So I withdraw my earlier suggestion of shrugging and letting LibLime have the name. Sorry about that. -- Mike.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
I don't think that shame is a significant deterrent for a company like Progressive Technology Federal Systems, Inc., which has taken every opportunity with Koha to flout the open-source spirit in which it was developed. Somehow, I think that if they could get a trademark on the term cluster bomb, they would go for it. Cary On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 11:32 AM, MJ Ray m...@phonecoop.coop wrote: Mike Taylor m...@indexdata.com So your best bet may be to shrug and let them have the old name for their proprietary fork. Just come up with a new name for the open codebase, let the world know, and move on with doing more useful things -- spending what money you have on coders and cataloguers rather than lawyers. Two things which may not be widely known here: 1. HLT was the original commissioner and I believe they have been using Koha continuously in delivering their library service since then. If they of all people are not allowed to share control of the name, then basically no FOSS project name is safe for its users. Ever. 2. Koha means akin to gift. The irony of trying to trademark that word in particular is mindboggling and should shame PTFS in the eyes of everyone who likes sharing information - basically all of us who are involved with libraries at some level, isn't it? So, please give generously to HLT's ratbag-repelling fund. There are wider issues at stake for users and coders for libraries. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust to Koha Community
BTW, you can't put a Paypal button in a post to this list. I suggest that you send a link. Cary On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Joann Ransom jran...@library.org.nz wrote: Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community. The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight. For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, butit is at this point that we find ourselves. So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know. Background reading: - Code4Lib article http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack. - Timeline http://koha-community.org/about/history/ of Koha :development - Koha history visualization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl1a2VN_pec Help us If you would like to help us fund legal costs please use the paypal donate button below. Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received. Regards Jo. -- Joann Ransom RLIANZA Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust. -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com
