[Evergreen-governance-l] FW: Evergreen Foundation

Thu Aug 5 00:01:15 EDT 2010

In the short term, I'm okay with having one rep per "initiative" on
the governance committee, as well as giving an actual voice to the
development/support vendors (who are... Equinox, ByWater, and...? I
think someone said that there were 4 such vendors, it's sad that I
can't name who the other 2 are, my apologies)

However, in the long term... Hmm, we're getting ahead of ourselves,
and stepping into the governance structure sub-committee area of
responsibility, but I'll jump in anyway and assert that I would be
uncomfortable with a formula that awards votes based on population
served or number of member libraries. Given that the focus is on the
project, I would hope that if there is a formula (beyond the standard
+1/-1 of interested parties that ), that some reflection of the
relative level of contribution to the project would be recognized in
that formula.

I used to work for IBM; when Microsoft and IBM were partnering on the
creation of OS/2 (before my time! but I read about that dark period),
Bill Gates was quoted as saying something along the lines of
"Microsoft is writing the code, and IBM is contributing masses of
asses." I believe we want governance for the project to be provided by
active contributors to the project - whether code, or translations, or
tests, or skins, or documentation, or requirements, or artwork, or Web
site design, or editing a newsletter, or supporting others on IRC /
mailing lists... In my opinion, governance should be seen as the
lowest level of contribution to the project. Which I realize turns the
normal conventions that recognize governance as the role to which one
should aspire on their head, but if we have 100 people governing a
project with 10 actual contributors, then:

1) That project is wildly top heavy and will discuss issues endlessly
with no tangible benefit to the actual project, while the contributors
ignore them. Or:

2) Those contributors will move on to some other project where their
contributions are appreciated. Or fork the project, if they value the
work they're doing but find that the governance structure of the
current project is unwieldy. See the history of Joomla (forked from
Mambo) for an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla

For an example of a contribution-based governance structure, see
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Governance ; applications for
membership are filed by individuals and approved on the basis of those
individuals' contributions to the Sugar Labs project, and then that
member base elects an Oversight Board (the governance structure for
the project).

Dan

On 4 August 2010 22:52, Lori Bowen Ayre <lori.ayre at galecia.com> wrote:
> One of the things we're doing on the RSCEL site is to capture the Evergreen
> Initiatives.  SITKA, Michigan Evergreen, Evergreen Indiana, Bibliomation,
> PaLs, Sita, and KCLS all being an "initiative."  Maybe we should allow for
> one "initiative rep" on the governance committee (for now) and eventually
> plan on some kind of federalist arrangement whereby we have one rep per
> inititaive (e.g. the senate) plus some number of reps (or votes?) based on
> the number of member libraries or population served (?) within each
> initiative....
> Just a thought.
> P.S.  Please enter info about your "initiative" at
> http://rscel/evergreen-ils.org/evergreen/about/projects
> Lori
>
> On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Hyman, Ben EDUC:EX <Ben.Hyman at gov.bc.ca>
> wrote:
>>
>> As a lurker on the list/committee, I should fess up that Sitka is
>> represented alternately by James Fournie and myself, but we are clearly both
>> terrible at calendar management so have missed - well - every meeting since
>> the in-person in Grand Rapids. Apologies for that (I do monitor the
>> minutes). Like BiblioMation, PaLs and etc, Sitka grows every month (36 sites
>> live and counting!). I agree that interim committee membership should be
>> clarified and suspect that with that clarification, publication of a
>> guesstimated timeline towards the post-interim phase would help bystanders
>> out.
>>
>> Ben Hyman
>> Manager, Policy & Technology
>> Public Library Services Branch, Ministry of Education
>> ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca
>> 250-387-4043
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: evergreen-governance-l-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org on behalf
>> of Amy Terlaga
>> Sent: Wed 8/4/2010 4:46 PM
>> To: Corridan, Jim (ICPR)
>> Cc: evergreen-governance-l
>> Subject: Re: [Evergreen-governance-l] FW: Evergreen Foundation
>>
>> Yes, I think that's right. I think that Monica from PLS in CA might be
>> interested, for instance.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Aug 4, 2010, at 7:33 PM, "Corridan, Jim (ICPR)" <jcorridan at icpr.IN.gov>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I concur, but think we better develop a process or rational for
>> > membership in the interim committee before we have additional requests.
>> >
>> > Jim
>> >
>> > Jim Corridan
>> > Deputy State Librarian
>> > Indiana State Library
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: evergreen-governance-l-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
>> > [evergreen-governance-l-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Lori
>> > Bowen Ayre [lori.ayre at galecia.com]
>> > Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 7:16 PM
>> > To: Amy Terlaga
>> > Cc: evergreen-governance-l
>> > Subject: Re: [Evergreen-governance-l] FW: Evergreen Foundation
>> >
>> > I am in favor of a PALS representative joining us on the Governance
>> > Committee.
>> >
>> > On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Amy Terlaga
>> > <terlaga at biblio.org<mailto:terlaga at biblio.org>> wrote:
>> > Okay, so do we take a vote?  Ask if there are any who disagree with this
>> > position to speak now or forever hold their peace?
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >
>> > On Aug 4, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Galen Charlton
>> > <gmc at esilibrary.com<mailto:gmc at esilibrary.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> On Aug 4, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Amy Terlaga wrote:
>> >>> I'd hate to have to resign from this committee ...
>> >>
>> >> And to be clear, my preference is definitely for expansiveness, not
>> >> contraction.
>> >>
>> >>> Oh, and in a follow-up email, Jenny Turner wanted to know if all three
>> >>> of
>> >>> them (Anoop, Jenny, and Stephen, their director) could sit in on these
>> >>> meetings.  I'm assuming that if we did say yes, we'd limit them to
>> >>> just one
>> >>> representative.
>> >>
>> >> Expanding on Elizabeth's suggestion, I suggest that they designate one
>> >> person to be the formal representative to the committee, but if all three of
>> >> them want to participate on subcommittees, that would be fine.
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Galen
>> >> --
>> >> Galen Charlton
>> >> VP, Data Services
>> >> Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>> >> email:  gmc at esilibrary.com<mailto:gmc at esilibrary.com>
>> >> direct: +1 352-215-7548
>> >> skype:  gmcharlt
>> >> web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
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>> >
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