IRC log for #koha, 2006-02-08

All times shown according to UTC.

Time S Nick Message
11:07 _hdl_ morning joshua.
11:07 _hdl_ Paul won't be ale to be there tonight.
11:07 _hdl_ Too tired.
11:14 kados ok thanks
11:14 kados perhaps we should reschedule
12:24 kados morning shedges, thd
12:24 shedges morning kados
12:24 thd good morning
12:49 thd kados: I asked you before about some minor nuisance clause for using Amazon web services in accordance with their license.
12:50 thd kados: 1.B.4.   If you display any Amazon Properties within your Application, you must add the following disclaimer in a place that is reasonably viewable by the user of your Application: "PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT SOME OF THE CONTENT THAT WE MAKE AVAILABLE TO YOU THROUGH THIS APPLICATION COMES FROM AMAZON WEB SERVICES. ALL SUCH CONTENT IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS." THIS CONTENT AND YOUR USE OF IT ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND/OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME."
12:53 thd kados: http://www.amazon.com/gp/brows[…]UTF8&node=3440661
12:56 kados thd: 'reasonably viewable' is nice and vague :-)
12:56 thd kados: That seems to suggest that the notice could be located on an OPAC About Koha page when web services is enabled.
12:56 kados thd: when they click on the 'search inside' link
12:56 _hdl_ or you can play, in France with 4th cover page not submitted to copyright.
12:57 _hdl_ Sorry to interrupt
12:57 kados :-)
12:58 thd kados: We both know that they do not bother to enforce this but it is much too useful to fail to comply like many others.
12:59 thd _hdl_: What text actually appears on the fourth cover page?
12:59 kados thd: 'reasonably viewable' does not mean 'on the same page'
12:59 kados thd: so would a link to 'content disclaimer' satisfy you?
13:00 thd kados: I do not think that it necessarily does.  I think an about Koha page, copyright, or disclaimers page in the OPAC would be fine.
13:01 kados thd: I think I'll leave that up to each Koha site to put into their template
13:01 kados thd: feel free to post a note to koha-devel recommending it
13:02 thd kados: Why is there no About Koha default page for the OPAC?
13:03 _hdl_ thd: usually, in france, title, authors, page count ISBN, and so on and so forth, no beautiful image or display
13:03 kados thd: dunno ... but my new 'opaccredits' can be easily used for that
13:03 kados since it's a systempref, they don't even need to edit the template file
13:03 kados just add some html to that systempref
13:04 thd kados: I will look for the opaccredits page.
13:04 kados thd: it's not a page
13:05 kados thd: it's a system pref
13:05 kados thd: that allows inserting text into each template
13:05 kados thd: at the bottom of the page (in the NPL template)
13:07 thd kados: That is even better but if the all caps for the Amazon notice is required that seems just a little scary on every page as opposed to a special content disclaimer page.
13:10 thd kados: Although, I think people almost never see the bottom of a web page unless either no scrolling is required or scrolling is needed for useful information the user was expecting.
13:12 thd kados: If it seldom seen, then it cannot be very scary.
13:12 kados thd: of course, they can just put a link in the opaccredits :-)
13:12 kados thd: a link that goes to the disclaimer
13:12 kados thd: and any other privacy policy, etc. that they might have
13:13 thd kados: Do all templates have a default for that?
13:15 kados no default
13:20 thd _hdl_: Your description seems to be the copyright page if it were English.  Do you refer to that as 'le avis de copyright'?
13:21 thd kados: Shouldn't there be a default for the OPAC?
13:22 kados thd: maybe ... something like 'Koha ILS' with a link to the koha homepage or something?
13:22 kados thd: maybe even a graphic? :-)
13:22 _hdl_ If there is ISBN, summary and title and author, yes.
13:22 thd kados: The default for the intranet is certainly about Koha.
13:22 kados thd: I'll leave that to the interface designers :-)
13:22 thd kados: A link should be fine.
13:22 kados thd: now that the syspref is there, it's easy enough to add
13:23 kados _hdl_: have you had a chance to try out the new code I committed?
13:23 kados _hdl_: (/me wonders if any french libraries would like the amazon stuff)
13:24 _hdl_ kados: could be.
13:24 _hdl_ But usually, french librarian are reluctant to redirect ppl to market places.
13:25 _hdl_ Could ask osmoze in fact.
13:25 thd kados: I remember a discussion on #koha where the library would not be allowed to in essence advertise for a private business such as Amazon.
13:25 thd kados: French public library
13:26 thd kados: where osmoze works
13:26 kados well ... any time a library has a book publisher listed on the OPAC it's advertising :-)
13:28 thd kados: I know but someone had made a rule that allowed the publishers name but did not allow linking to a commercial business or something, at least at that library.
13:28 kados what about using a service from a company like Amazon
13:29 kados the only link to Amazon.com on the OPAC is a link to the 'read it now' service they offer
13:29 kados a service that many libraries pay syndetic solutions or some other vendor to use
13:30 thd kados: very expensive for much of the same information
13:30 thd :)
14:02 thd _hdl_: Is there any reason why marc_subfield_structure.seealso cannot be VARCHAR (2048) instead of VARCHAR (255)?
14:03 thd kados: The above seems to have been the problem yesterday with my attempt to search all possible subject subfields.
14:04 thd kados: The value must have been truncated with bad syntax.
14:06 thd kados: sorry for causing trouble testing on your test system without first having tested on my own.
14:07 kados thd: np :-)
14:07 thd kados: did you commit the needed template changes to all templates?
14:08 kados thd: yep
14:08 kados thd: kohatest.liblime.com is running stock cvs
14:08 kados thd: no template or script modifs
14:09 thd _hdl_: Are you still there?
14:10 thd kados: what is happening when the fixed things become broken all over again?
14:11 thd kados: Is there not some good standard practise that prevents that from happening?
14:13 thd kados: Are people working with old copies of rel 2_2 files and then reusing them for later updates to CVS?
14:22 kados thd: mostly what's happening is we forget to commit the fixes right away
14:22 kados thd: I'm trying to stop doing that :-)
14:23 thd kados: the subject search fix was committed for the NPL templates a few days after 2.2.4 after I noticed it and pointed it out to owen.
14:24 thd kados: Yet, it was working correctly for the CSS templates at that time.
14:25 thd kados: 2.2.5 seemed to have broken it for all the templates.
14:25 kados thd: don't know what to tell ya
14:25 kados thd: other than it's working now :-)
14:26 kados I suspect someone overwrote the fix somewhere along the way
14:26 thd kados: I just want to be certain I do not do anything worse if there is some good practise I can follow to avoid that for myself :)
14:27 kados thd: always make sure you're working from the latest cvs before you commit anything
14:27 kados though usually cvs will warn you when you try otherwise
14:28 thd kados: exactly, it will tell you so breaking from old files seems very odd.
14:45 kados T-MINUS ~1 hour 15 MINUTES TO KOHA ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING
14:46 kados don't think we really need an agenda ... not much to talk about with paul missing :(
14:55 kados be back before the mtg
15:46 kados T-MINUS 15 MINUTES TO KOHA MEETING
15:55 kados T-MINUS 5 MINUTES TO KOHA MEETING
15:59 kados T-MINUS 2 MINUTES TO KOHA MEETING
15:59 kados hello?
15:59 kados anyone here? :-)
15:59 kados heh
16:00 kados well, this will be easy to summarize :-)
16:02 thd here
16:03 kados hey sanspach
16:03 sanspach hi
16:03 kados how's it going?
16:03 sanspach too busy to keep up; but that's normal
16:04 kados we don't seem to have quorum, so I think we're gonna have to postpone the meeting
16:04 kados hi hdl
16:04 hdl hi kados.
16:05 kados guess we'll way a bit, if chris or anyone at katipo shows up we could have at least some status reports
16:05 kados s/way/wait/
16:05 thd kados: Does hdl make a quorum?
16:05 hdl sorry to be late
16:05 hdl I am in Montpellier at my parents :)
16:06 kados thd: think we need chris, or russ, or someone from NZ :-)
16:06 hdl But My other me is loging in.
16:06 kados paul?
16:06 hdl Not coming tonight
16:06 kados right
16:06 kados hdl: do you have any idea where paul is with perl-zoom?
16:06 thd kados: someone from every major timezone? :)
16:08 kados hdl: any news on perl-zoom?
16:08 hdl problem #2 solved
16:08 kados good ... what was it?
16:08 hdl but problem 1 stays alive
16:09 kados CQL right?
16:09 hdl yes
16:09 hdl CQL and config problem
16:09 kados is paul waiting for help, or will he continue to troubleshoot it?
16:09 hdl But the other one was solved by installing the LATEST hot YAZ
16:10 kados right
16:10 hdl paul is waiting for help
16:10 kados from index data right?
16:10 hdl He sent a-e-mail on the lkoha-zebra list
16:10 hdl yep sir.
16:11 kados ok, I hope they can find out the problem soon
16:11 kados paul must be very frustrated!
16:11 hdl he IS.
16:12 kados I never anticipated such trouble getting perl-zoom integrated
16:12 kados any other news ?
16:13 hdl One cannot anticipate until we face pbs.
16:13 kados right
16:13 hdl I am working on serial itemization
16:13 kados I committed some code over the weekend
16:13 hdl I saw.
16:13 kados serial itemization++
16:13 hdl shall give it a try, if i have a little time.
16:14 kados excellent ... for 2.2.6?
16:14 thd kados: if it is worth doing and not trivial there will be trouble :)
16:14 hdl kados: yes
16:14 kados yep
16:14 kados hdl: that's good news
16:14 hdl Not so trivial.
16:14 kados I bet ...
16:15 hdl But itemization wil be quite simple
16:15 hdl (barcodes, homebranch and itemcallnumber + status and location)
16:15 hdl Not more.
16:15 kados should be enough
16:15 hdl Serial number wil be stored in itemnotes.
16:16 kados and in serials?
16:16 hdl and in serials.
16:16 hdl of course.
16:16 kados :-)
16:16 thd not trivial was not necessarily meant to refer to serial itemisation.
16:16 hdl Old behavior won't be changed.
16:17 kados ok
16:17 kados anything else anyone?
16:17 hdl Not from France.
16:18 hdl Except I have problems with mod_perl.
16:18 kados could you explain?
16:18 hdl and virtualshelves function with one of our customer.
16:18 kados hey slef
16:18 thd hdl: what protects against finding many screenfulls of serial results from a serial title search when serials are itemised?
16:18 slef hello
16:19 kados slef: light meeting today, no chris or paul
16:19 kados slef: mostly talking about news
16:19 kados hdl: do you mean you have had problems implementing mod_perl?
16:19 kados hdl: if so, that's because the intranet is not mod_perl safe
16:19 hdl thd:  It will be since you will only have 1 Title line.
16:20 hdl But many items
16:20 kados thd: I think we'll have to find a solution for displaying such items
16:20 hdl thd: you don't create a new biblio for each serials issue.
16:21 thd hdl: just as it should be that is fine
16:21 kados hdl: one that I have done for some clients
16:21 hdl kados: Did you test thoroughly mod_perl behavior ?
16:21 kados is to _not_ show item records for certain itemtypes
16:22 kados hdl: yes, and determined that the intranet is not mod_perl safe :-)
16:22 hdl kados: yes vcould be.
16:22 hdl GOSH.
16:22 hdl I wasnot aware of this.
16:22 kados yes, only the opac is mod_perl safe at this point
16:23 kados chris will make the intranet mod_perl safe in 3.0
16:23 hdl Did you trace what went wrong in intranet... ?
16:23 kados due to the number of errors, I didn't have time
16:23 kados when I was attempting it
16:23 kados but there are memory leaks I suspect
16:23 hdl and what prevented intranet to be mod_perl safe.
16:23 kados it will definitely cause data to be incorrect
16:24 hdl MANY MANY mem leaks indeed.
16:24 kados I didn't do any tracing
16:24 kados so I'm not sure where the problems are
16:24 kados but chris will be working on this problem in 3.0 very soon
16:24 kados so perhaps we should backport what he does to 2.2.6
16:24 hdl DAMNED
16:25 kados any other news?
16:25 thd hdl: DAMNED?
16:25 kados if not, I'll close the meeting
16:26 hdl thd: installing a mod_perl unsafe version at a customer is quite clumsy.
16:26 thd kados: we could ask hdl and slef about my koha-devel post
16:26 kados thd: sure
16:26 hdl kados: no other point.
16:26 hdl thd: not suer I saw this.
16:26 hdl Remember I am not on my machine.
16:27 thd hdl: I will find the link now
16:27 kados http://lists.nongnu.org/archiv[…]-02/msg00020.html
16:28 hdl I agree with you. Could be a good point to be DBM independant.
16:29 slef thd: sounds good. Nothing to add from me, but no time to work on it here right now.
16:29 hdl That's why I thought that using too much Mysql constriants could be annoying.
16:30 hdl BUT we must be cautious and not limit ourselves too much with a good will to be DBM independant.
16:30 hdl I have no clear answer.
16:31 kados ok ... so thd if you have time to work on it, great!
16:31 kados I think it should be noted, and probably sumarized for the coding guidelines
16:31 kados anything else to discuss today?
16:31 hdl I think if there is an international dev meeting, we can speak and deal with this problem more deeper.
16:31 kados yep
16:32 slef I think a few DBMSes will be able to match mysql's features.
16:32 hdl postgreSQL seems to be now a VERY good DBM
16:32 kados postgreSQL++
16:32 thd hdl: fi you read the message carefully and my followup correction you would see that DBM neutrality is impossible with identifier quoting unless there are alternate routines for different DB routines.
16:32 hdl and it is MORE "FSF" compliant.
16:33 kados yep
16:33 thd s/fi/if/
16:34 thd s/DB routines/DB flavour routines/
16:34 hdl thd: thx for your participation and for your suggestion. Will try to abide by them from now on.
16:35 hdl If meeting is closed, will leave you for a good dinner. :)
16:35 kados good evening hdl
16:36 thd kados: at the GPL 3 conference there was a slide citing a GPL license for Postgres which is still news to me.
16:36 hdl good evening folks.
16:36 thd good evening hdl
16:36 slef thd: are there proceedings for that conference online yet?
16:37 thd slef: I have not checked but everything was recorded to have been posted a week later.
16:38 thd slef: There is certainly a wiki for commenting on the GPL v3 draft document
16:39 slef thd: aye, the wiki works. The comments system doesn't, unless you use one of a few firefox versions afaict
16:39 slef which REALLY SUCKS for FSF with "Any Browser" on their pages. (lies!)
16:39 slef should koha 2.2.5 work with mysql 4.1.0?
16:40 slef http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/b[…]w_bug.cgi?id=1045
16:40 slef just came in today
16:40 thd slef: last minute recoding of a special modification for mediawiki
16:43 thd slef: chris told me that normal acquisitions is not completely fixed in 2.2.X and will not be, although, they made a special NZ only shortcut for one Katipo library.
16:43 thd slef: normal acquisitions will be fixed for 3.0
16:46 thd slef: however, dangerous bugs should still be expected for many 3.0 features, initially.
16:51 thd slef: with respect to alternate DB SQL.  There is already code in C4::context.pm for a db_scheme value for koha.conf.
16:54 thd slef: you could already have code in the installer for supporting db_scheme in koha.conf.
16:55 thd slef: are you there?
16:55 thd russ: Is chris there?
16:55 slef thd: I am here, looking at that bug.
16:56 thd slef: That bug is related to normal acquisitions which is not working now, see above.
16:58 slef looks to me more like dangerous coding style in updatedatabase, but I can't tell
17:00 thd slef: there had been a problem with Koha under MySQL 4.1 where the installer did not grant enough privileges to the Koha user for what MySQL 4.1 required.
17:00 slef lock tables or something else?
17:00 thd yes that was it
17:01 slef this might be related, but I don't understand that part of updatedatabase, so I pass it to paul
17:02 thd slef: what about supporting db_scheme in koha.conf even for 2.2.6?
17:06 thd slef: I mean what about filling db_scheme in koha.conf from the installer for 2.2.6 with a warning that only MySQL currently has enough support for a working Koha?
17:08 thd slef: The installer should also have a warning against MySQL 5 until there is more identifier quoting.
17:08 slef thd: that would be possible, but paul should OK it IMO
17:09 thd slef: yes, I still wait for paul and chris.
00:30 vircuser Hi
00:31 vircuser Just seeing how awake the support group for Koha is...
00:31 chris only the nzers awake at the moment i think
00:31 vircuser We are thinking of evaluating Koha in our public library.
00:31 vircuser How stupid are we being?
00:31 chris not very
00:31 vircuser :-)
00:32 chris its running in lots of public libraries around the world already
00:32 vircuser I like that answer. Will recommend our librarians join here to discuss it.
00:32 russ i would say you are enlightened - not stupid :-)
00:32 vircuser Here is one now...
00:32 chris its probably best to post an email to mailing list too
00:32 vircuser My trustees have been looking at Sirsi/Dynix and The Library Corporation.
00:32 chris then youll get responses from librarians
00:33 rosa Hi vircuser
00:33 rosa I'm a librarian
00:33 vircuser Have you ever seen a point-by-point comparison between Koha, Sirsi/Dynix, and TLC?
00:33 rosa Nope
00:34 vircuser That's what we really need.  
00:34 vircuser It's one thing to say we could save money, it's another to say we could accomplish the same tasks with the same ease.
00:34 rosa Bit I do know I can get what I want from Koha, and most librarians I know who use commercial systems get very frustrated asking for customisation they're told they can't have
00:35 chris Koha isnt nessecarily cheaper
00:35 rosa Or will have to wait ages for
00:35 rosa Or it's too expensive
00:35 vircuser Why isn't it necessarily cheaper?  I thought it was free.
00:35 chris it is
00:35 chris but you still have to pay someone(maybe your own staff) to install it, and convert your data
00:36 chris and then you may want to spend some money building a feature you want, or tweaking some existing feature to work the way you want
00:36 chris the beauty with Koha, is that it can do exactly what you want it to do, its open source you can change it, or hire someone to change to fit your needs
00:37 chris plus you only need to pay for it once
00:37 russ once you have the data in you will need to do some testing to verify the data, and library staff will need training - once again either you can do this yourselves or pay someone
00:37 chris not every year with a license fee :-)
00:38 vircuser Ok. Yes
00:39 chris so much cheaper in the long run, not nessecarily cheaper in the short term, if that makes sense?
00:39 vircuser Ok.
00:41 rosa Or you can regard the money you've allocated for the next ten years for license fees to your proprietary supplier as dollars available for investing in making Koha much better
00:41 rosa for everyone
00:43 vircuser Techguy says - I've just been saying the same thing ITRW
00:45 rosa ITRW?
00:45 vircuser In the "real world"
00:45 vircuser i.e. not on-line (NB May be mythical)
00:46 rosa :)
00:53 vircuser Does anyone here know if anyone from the Ohio library comes on line at all?
00:55 chris yep, stephen is often on, as is owen
00:55 chris usually not this time of the day tho
00:58 vircuser What would the best time of the day be for them?
00:59 vircuser Hours plus from now
00:59 chris umm, im guessng EST between 9-5
00:59 vircuser Cool. Thanks a bunch
01:02 vircuser We are off to the land of nod. See u thru the week or the windoze :-)
01:04 thd chris: do you have any comment on this thread http://lists.nongnu.org/archiv[…]-02/msg00020.html ?
01:05 chris not at the moment i dont
01:05 thd chris: is that for lack of time or no opinion?
01:05 chris the former
01:06 chris i havent had time to read it properly and consider my response
01:07 thd chris: please consider a response, improvement, rejection, etc. thanks
07:51 |hdl| chris around ?
07:52 |hdl| 2 late.
07:52 |hdl| sorry.
09:03 osmoze hello
09:49 |hdl| hello
10:14 kados morning all
10:14 kados |hdl|: are you there still?
10:15 |hdl| morning
10:16 |hdl| yes kados
10:17 kados I have a question about inventory report sorting and LOC
10:17 kados does it sort correctly?
10:53 |hdl| sorry (was on phone ;)
10:54 |hdl| Normally, it is Alphabetical order and not numerical one

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