LibLime's Enterprise Koha Sets Off Debate

Typically, a revamped vendor product line doesn't result in a flurry of open letters to the community and lengthy message threads on mailing lists and blogs. But LibLime's recent announcement of Enterprise Koha has generated just such a response, prompting many to reexamine the sometimes fluid roles that vendors, customers, and code contributors play in the open source software community.

On September 11, LibLime announced the launch of Enterprise Koha, a new Software as a Service (SaaS) version of the Koha open source integrated library system (ILS), along with an entry-level hosted package for a flat annual fee of $299; the latter, called Koha Express, is the model to which most of its existing customers will migrate.

With Enterprise Koha, LibLime will focus all of its development efforts on features requested by its subscribers. The requested Enterprise Koha features would be first incorporated into the version of the software available only to the customer and later opened up to other Koha users and developers. According to the company, "a public software release of each version of LibLime Enterprise Koha will occur periodically."

Responding to a seemingly anticipated pushback from the broader Koha community (those who use and develop Koha with no ties to LibLime), company CEO Joshua Ferraro also stressed in the release that "[these] are process changes, not philosophical changes."

Despite these assurances, others see the move as likely to "fork" the software's code—resulting in two incompatible software projects—which is potentially detrimental to a unified Koha user community.

In a strongly worded blog post, Joann Ransom, deputy head of libraries at Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand, decried the announcement. (The Horowhenua Library Trust originally commissioned the development of what would become the Koha ILS from Katipo Communications in 1999.) Ransom said she finds it "incredibly sad and disappointing that Liblime has decided to breach the spirit of the Koha project and offer a 'Liblime clients—only' version of Koha. Let's call it what it is: vendor lockin and a fork."

Much of the debate surrounds how LibLime will contribute the commissioned enhancements back to the larger Koha community. Many developers are worried that large, infrequent updates increase the potential for incompatibilities and will make it more difficult to resolve software conflicts.

Developers have asked LibLime to make publicly available its under-development codebase, so that other Koha developers could at least keep tabs on new features. But this option has been rejected by the company on the grounds that the code repository "contains customer-sensitive data."

Other aspects of the debate have centered more on the stewardship of open source projects. Taking a slightly more distanced view, Marshall Breeding, ILS industry analyst and director for innovative technologies and research at Vanderbilt University, published his response in the form of "An Open Letter to the Koha Community." As he put it, "[r]ecent events suggest that it's time to take a closer look at the governance of the Koha project."

While vendors have strong roles to play, he says they should not assume the lion's share of overall project management: "Libraries...should take action to ensure that they are not vulnerable to the success or failure of any given business or reliant on specific business strategies." To that end, Breeding recommends the formation of a foundation (modeled on the Kuali Foundation) that would coordinate development activities and take over long-term strategic planning.

Finally, open source vendor Equinox Software, which offers development and support to the alternative Evergreen ILS, used the fracas as an opportunity to issue its own open letter entitled "The Equinox Promise." The letter sets out six pledges covering many of the issues raised by LibLime's announcement, including development transparency, code ownership, and community stewardship.