[Evergreen-governance-l] Proposed New Governance Changes

[Dan Scott]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 09:23:02AM -0400, Amy Terlaga wrote:
> I'm wondering if there could be some middle ground we could find on this.
> 
> I'm not sure what that middle ground would be at this point, but I would
> like to explore it more.
> 
> I do think that Jim is right in that if we keep the role of the Foundation
> small, we'll need (or some other entity will need) to develop something else
> to deal with some of the other community issues.  In other words, if we keep
> it small (simplifying the Foundation's role), we're just kicking the can
> down the road for others to pick up.

Yes, we will need other groups to deal with some of the other community
issues - but, that's how the community has operated so far, and arguably
with success as demonstrated by the very adoption of Evergreen that
we're so passionate about. It started as predominantly a code-centric
community, with the developers doing almost everything (maintaining
servers, writing blog posts, updating the Web site, getting the word out
in the library technical community) and Tim / Elizabeth / Julie doing a
great deal of advocacy work.

The next piece to emerge was the Documentation Interest Group, and that
is now bearing fruit at http://docs.evergreen-ils.org. There is
more communication and coordination between the code committers and the
DIG; the recent Community IRC meeting seems to be a successful model for
bringing the relevant people together to focus on integration points.

Bear in mind that it took the DIG about three years to go from a hastily
sketched out "Book of Evergreen" concept, to a workshop by Karen
Schneider at the 2009 Evergreen conference that lead to forming the DIG,
to producing actual HTML / PDF output just recently. It takes time for
these efforts to evolve: people need to build trust with one another and
establish a working culture, and in the case of the DIG work out style
guides / technical choices & mastering the corresponding skills / build
environments, and in most cases this is still being done in volunteer
time. But I would argue that the DIG and Evergreen as a whole is much
more robust as a result of that maturing process than if one technical
writer had been hired to produce a single comprehensive manual and then
disappeared.

In a similar fashion, the Reports Taskforce, Communications Committee,
and Web Subcommittee have been getting off the ground since the 2010
conference; I think they've been making significant progress without a
formal foundation. Similar to the DIG and the code committers, these
parts of the community have reported on their progress to the Community
IRC meeting.

I think we should continue with this model of small task-oriented groups
that report back to the community as a whole. Small groups have the
advantage of being nimble - rather than having roles and processes
written into the foundation's rules of governance, they can adopt
processes that work for them to enable them to get work done. We have
set the date for the next Community IRC meeting, and I think the general
sense was that these meetings are a useful rallying point for the
existing groups to come together and communicate. No doubt we can do a
better job of refining those meetings, but that should come with
practice.

A small but important accomplishment that would be beneficial to the
Evergreen project would be getting the project's assets into the hands
of a non-profit organization charged with ensuring that those assets
(code / trademarks / domain names / funds like conference profits?)
continue to serve the free and open source Evergreen software community.
Why not solve that problem - it's a huge win for the community - and
move on to the next challenge?

If it turns out that the foundation needs to grow to encompass more
official capacities over time, I believe it can evolve from a small,
focused core as those needs emerge.

> I know that I come from a place that focuses strongly on user group issues -
> and maybe that was a mistake to try to roll those issues into the
> Foundation's purpose.  

This is a topic for another thread, but just out of interest, what would
the difference be between being a member of the Evergreen community, and
a member of the Evergreen User Group?

Asked another way, what role(s) do you envision the User Group playing
in the community? That might be one of the deciding factors about where
it should live. Would it be possible to follow the model of starting
small, recruiting volunteers from the community, and reporting back to
the community until such time that things need to become more formal
(i.e. when money gets involved)?

As I said - probably another thread should be devoted to what a user
group would be and do :)

> And with the dues issue, I do think that there needs to be some $$ coming in
> - at the very least so that there's $$ there to contribute to the SFC.  I
> also think that Board liability insurance is still a good idea, even if the
> Foundation's role is kept to just keeper of the code.

(Keeper of code / trademarks / domain names / potentially other assets
like net revenues from conferences)

I can't speak for the SFC, but if we're a low-maintenance member (e.g.
they don't have to cut cheques every day) then I don't think they'll be
too upset by a low amount of money flowing through our project. But, I
had outlined in a previous email some other methods of fundraising that
groups do when they have a defined need for funds:

  * Sponsorship (with the carrot of having the sponsoring organization's
name and logo linked from the project's home page at a certain
threshold; possibly also in the "About" page of the staff client?)

  * Donations via PayPal and the like (it's a small carrot, but there
could be a list of donor organizations and individuals below the
sponsorship thresholds - and it's a charitable (albeit geeky) donation
in the US, so there is that)

The foundation could hold those funds (via the Conservancy) and direct
their usage according to the community / user group's stated fund
raising goals.

> I don't think we'll get this resolved over email.

We might not be able to resolve it, but I hope we can at least clearly
state our positions, provide evidence and arguments to buttress those
positions, and get close to a consensus via email. Email gives us the
opportunity to reflect on our thoughts, do research, and have a written
record of the pros and cons of any given decision. I agree that a phone
call can be useful once a consensus is close, but it is a very narrow
bandwidth medium that necessarily limits discussion. Email enables all
of the participants to have a (written) voice and to take as much time
and space as they need, when they need it, to express their thoughts and
to digest everyone else's thoughts. (Dan looks back at the previous 130
lines in his email... perhaps that's not such a positive thing after
all)

Of course, that's the philosophy major in me speaking.