Koha in Repository

[Tom Hoffman]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 9:10 AM, Jim Kronebusch <jim at winonacotter.org> wrote:
> This probably isn't the appropriate list to post this, but it is a start.  Koha seems to
>  be the most widely used open source library software, but no distribution seems to have
>  it in their repository. Is there a possibility that Ubuntu/Edubuntu could be?  Maybe
>  even an option in Ubuntu Server like choosing LAMP or Mail server?
>
>  Anyhow, I figured I'd just post this here quick and see if I got any feedback.  If
>  anyone could tell me the proper way to request such a thing and which distribution it
>  would be a better fit in please do.

My impression is that there isn't a strong incentive for people to
package PHP/MySQL server apps.  That is, it isn't a particularly easy
package to create if you really want it to run out of the box with
just "apt-get install koha" since your packaging scripts would have to
configure the database and webserver correctly.  On the other hand,
experienced sys admins don't necessarily want packages that do that
configuration automatically.  They'd rather do it themselves.

That's my analysis of why these things tend not to happen.  I know
we've spent a TON of time in the last year to have a complete stack of
proper .deb packages that will let you have a running SchoolTool
instance with just "apt-get install schooltool" and it is something
we're still working on.  When you take into account all the
dependencies, it can get very, very complicated.

--Tom