old.kete.net.nz

Topic: Notes from Conference Call Meeting

Topic type:
Topic

Meeting: The Future of Kete proposal conference call

Tuesday, April 30

Action Points

sign up to the mailing list : http://lists.katipo.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kete [everyone]
community to post over next week or two, questions, ideas or concerns, please monitor these and come to consensus that majority favour this action [everyone] - please use mailing list or comments below.
Joann will write a letter explaining the imperative for backend technical work [Jo R]
individuals to explore contribution amounts, and when [everyone]
anyone can confidentially email Joann Ransom or Josh Forde with any other points [everyone]

Attendees :

meeting chaired, Josh F and Joann R

Irma Birchall

Andy Robertson

Harley Couper

Stefan Langenmaier

Amander Magee

Elise Smith

James Leech

Josh Forde

Leith Harrhof

Warwick

Bill Howard

Sue Page

Smita Biswas

Jo Ransom

Fiona Mcgregor

Mark Caunter (Hamilton along with Amanda)

Agenda

introduce everyone to the call
intro the proposal - talk through where we envisage the project moving.
future of Kete post this proposal phase
- include letter from Calyx in Australia
- what makes a good open source project, what will make this sustainable
- blog on an interesting digital humanities project: http://scriptogr.am/rabid
discuss questions [send questions through ahead of time for priority]. email Josh - josh@rabidtech.co.nz
open discussion - new questions
actions and timeframes for participants

Notes

One hour meeting. Led by Joann Ransom Te Takere. Josh Forde Rabid Technologies Limited.

Rabid have a proposal as a software dev co. Josh introduced Rabid as an open-source Wellington company. Attracted to Kete due to the purpose of the software, believe has the potential to grow and scale. Our business looks at software solutions that have a positive impact on our communities so conceptually Kete ticks many of our boxes. Have spent significant time trying to understand Kete and the relationship to libraries. Have essentially settled on trying to represent a perspective of good software practise

Proposed upgrade is split in 2 phases. The first of these addresses the age and quality of the backend technology. The Ruby on Rails version2 software framework has reached end of life for all but severe security issues which needs to be addressed. Much of the code requires refactorin to modern good-practice. At present the code is a barrier to new developers working with the project and there is no current improvement effort happening with the software.

Phase 1 upgrade ruby on rails, make search engine modern. Security updates etc. Assessing some of the big picture items as go to see how hard to change or fix wish list later. Freeing up info from app, workflow heading towards api. Eg a community able to store images more as they happen allowed through APIs. Dublin core, internet archive expressed interest in providing permanent archiving records.

Question regarding integrating Kete with existing CMS etc?
Rabid’s view is that this has merit but probably not at this point what we would do, Kete could become a CMS but see unique advantage being in the proposition to GLAM sector as a product focus for development. Leith (PNCC) proposed focusing Kete development on an improved back end service and api then use of a front end like Drupal or WordPress to serve the content within more powerful publishing tools.

Irma of Calyx in Australia have analysed Kete and feel there is unique opportunity in the software. Rabid and Calyx have informally agreed to collaborate in Australia. With a caveat of an improved piece of software Calyx are confident and have expressions of interest from several libraries.

Sustainability: Getting more software developers on board long term could assist in stability of project. Devs have a better connection to the software where librarians are more focused on their users so operating at one remove compared to a dev.

Stage one 80 to 100k. Phase two could be a bit different, maybe front footed into some new installations etc. To get to an acceptable standard 40k. Min. Overall 150 to 200k.

Horowhenua Library Trust as the project managers in a benevolent dictator model to get it going, in a completely transparent open way.

Conclusions

The community who attended expressed significant value in the Kete instances that are installed and that they believe these are worth preserving. There was general concern at the potential of Kete not winning support and some who said they hadn’t understood that Kete was structurally in need of modernisation.

Rabid & HLT have painted a view to steering the project to a healthy well-supported open-source project and have encouraged everyone to speak to either Josh or Joann about how they could fund this. Essentially funding Phase One is the watershed point to begin an overall improvement

There are still questions and debate to be had by members about agreeing on this course of action and we’re very open to that and hearing about concerns.

Actions to be taken

sign up to the mailing list : http://lists.katipo.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kete
community to post over next week or two, questions, ideas or concerns, please monitor these and come to consensus that majority favour this action
Joann will write a letter explaining the imperative for backend technical work
individuals to explore contribution amounts, and when
anyone can confidentially email Joann Ransom or Josh Forde with any other points