[Evergreen-governance-l] FW: Evergreen Foundation

[Dan Scott]

For that matter, Conifer is actively expanding its membership (albeit
strictly on a cost-sharing basis) and already contributes code
directly to the development of Evergreen. And I have been provided
consulting services as an individual (migration assistance, training,
whatever) outside of Conifer. So... where should Conifer sit? And
where should I sit?

I've been cobbling together a list of the governance structures of
other free software organizations, which so far I've just spammed our
subcommittee with. I'll try to put that together in the Evergreen wiki
so everyone can see how other organizations work - but I suspect
you'll find in most cases the people who choose to make a living out
of creating and supporting free software are also those who are most
active and passionate about the governance of their project. If our
formal governance structure doesn't provide an official seat at the
table for the "vendors" who create and support the code in whatever
capacity, then I feel that an important part of our constituency isn't
being properly represented. Does this mean that the ex-officio status
that we've currently assigned to those four vendors should just go
away? Maybe.

In many organizations, the representatives are chosen based on a
voting system. Whether a given person works for a vendor, or works for
a consortium, or is just a one-person library, representatives should
be chosen based on their track record and the trust that the community
has in that person to fulfill their duties - independent of their
current affiliation. Perhaps this is just a caution that our formal
structure needs to provide a mechanism for avoiding (or stemming) an
abuse of power once those people are chosen, in the unlikely case that
a controlling share of representatives all get hired by the same
vendor or consortium or one-person library and the governance of the
project starts to go in a direction that the broad community does not
support.

Dan

On 4 August 2010 14:56, Galen Charlton <gmc at esilibrary.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I support agreeing to their request, insofar as I would like representation in Evergreen governance to be as broad as possible.  MnPALS certainly has the experience in library automation (decades of it, in fact) to be a valuable voice, and with their Evergreen database and their support of the ECRL migration, they certainly have enough skin in the game.  Putting my developer hat on, I would be very happy to see lots of commits from them in the future.
>
> However, one caveat, and time to put my vendor hat on: in my mind, they also represent a case, which was inevitable, that it will be increasingly difficult to draw a clear line between vendors and libraries.  Equinox is obviously on end of the scale - I won't pretend that our rather large stack of O'Reilly books makes us a library.  A library or consortium who is just using Evergreen would be at the other end.  However, there is a potentially mushy middle - consortia who actively expand membership, sometimes on a fee for service basis, and who, as in the case of PALS, respond (and win) competitive RFPs.
>
> Why does this matter?  Currently, there are four vendor members of this committee, all of whom are ex officio.  Where does MnPALS fall?
>
> Regards,
>
> Galen
>
> On Aug 4, 2010, at 11:03 AM, Amy Terlaga wrote:
>
>> Hi all—
>>
>> PALS has requested to join the Governance Committee.
>>
>> What’s the procedure to consider/accept another member to the committee?
>>
>> FYI -
>> Both Jenny Turner and Anoop Atre from PALS are heading up the Evergreen Reports Taskforce and I know that Anoop is active on the #evergreen IRC channel.
>>
>> Please advise/discuss…
>>
>> Amy
>>
>> =======================
>> Amy Terlaga
>> Assistant Director, User Services
>> Bibliomation
>> 32 Crest Road
>> Middlebury, CT  06762
>> (203)577-4070 x101
>> http://www.biblio.org
>> ----
>> Bibliomation's Open Source blog:
>> http://biblio-os.blogspot.com/
>>
>> Join us on Facebook:
>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=171935276419
>> From: Turner, Jennifer M [mailto:jennifer.turner at mnsu.edu]
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 5:13 PM
>> To: terlaga at biblio.org
>> Subject: Evergreen Foundation
>>
>> Hello Amy,
>>
>> Would it be appropriate for someone from the PALS office to be involved with the Evergreen Foundation?  Both Anoop and I attended the conference session regarding this foundation, but at that time felt that we were too new to the community to offer any assistance or guidance.  Now that we have a migration under our belts and have applied to be grant partners with KCLS (all paperwork has been completed; we are just waiting for official notification of acceptance/rejection), we feel that we are in a better place to contribute to the future of Evergreen.
>>
>> Let me know your thoughts on this.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jenny
>>
>> ==============================
>> Jennifer Turner
>> PALS, A Program of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
>> Minnesota State University, Mankato
>> ML 3022
>> Mankato, MN 56001
>> 507-389-2000
>>
>> * Through Our Work, Knowledge Grows *
>>
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>
> --
> Galen Charlton
> VP, Data Services
> Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
> email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
> direct: +1 352-215-7548
> skype:  gmcharlt
> web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/
>
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