Koha community opposes PTFS Trademark

Koha, the open source library management system project, originally conceived and developed by Horowhenua Library Trust and Katipo Communications, is fighting a decision by IPONZ to allow a trademark from PTFS for the Koha name. Since the original development a substantial international community has evolved around the software.

The Trust made a plea for help in opposing the trademark earlier this week, and have set up a fund to oppose the trademark application from PTFS and to support an application for the trademark to be given to the Koha community.

According to Wikipedia, this issue began "in 2009 when dispute arose between LibLime and other members of the Koha community. The dispute centred on LibLime's apparent reluctance to be inclusive with the content of the http://www.koha.org/ sites and the non-contribution of software patches back to the community. A number of participants declared that they believed that LibLime had forked the software and the community. A separate web presence, source code repository and community was established at http://koha-community.org/ . The fork continued after March 2010, when LibLime was purchased by PTFS."

The project that ended up at http://koha-community.org was a finalist in the 2007 NZOSA awards.

The NZOSS has committed to helping the Koha community protect its name, and will be encouraging its members and other members of the IT community to get behind the Koha community and support its opposition to the Koha trademark.