[Evergreen-governance-l] Evergreen Governance

[McKinney, Elizabeth]

Colleagues of the Governance Committee, 

Our discussion list has been very quiet this week, so I want to take a moment to talk about our direction and focus. 

After reading through the latest drafts of governance rules from Sylvia and Dan and the many conversations on the various lists, I still believe our best direction is to continue with the original agenda we all agreed upon in April. Going forward we need to consider and agree to a few things so that our work does not stall again.

We have to accept that Evergreen is not a standard open source development project. Evergreen is world class software. Our developers are among the best. Our agency got that validation through the nod we received from the Mellon Foundation in 2007 when we received the Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration. But this was not only a success for the developers, it was a success for our agency and the entire library community in Georgia. Evergreen was not built solely by those four original developers.  Evergreen was also built by its users.  I  know so many of you have heard our story countless times, but this is a key point in moving us forward. Evergreen users are an integral part of the community. Protecting the assets of the community involve both the developer and the user communities.  They are inextricable. 

I represent a consortium of libraries composed of over 3,000 plus library staff and approximately 3 million users whose tax dollars paid directly for development of the Evergreen software. Our users agreed to proceed with an open source product based on our experience with a proprietary software vendor that dictated to us what we would receive. They also agreed to an open source product with the knowledge that we would share our software with a future Evergreen community. Community has always been the vision. I have no intention of recommending that the State of Georgia hand over the assets of the Georgia library community that built Evergreen and the community of libraries that has subsequently joined us in building Evergreen without the assurance that this software will move forward with the interests of all community members well represented. 

Our community is made up of a wide variety of interest groups, and we have to respect that. We have users, developers, consultants, 3rd party vendors.  The list can go on and on. Yes, we all come to the table with our own agendas, our own communication styles, our own preferences for how we conduct business. If we are going to succeed we will have to respectfully consider the interests of everyone at the table. 

Can we agree to move forward with our original agenda? 
Can we agree to move forward with respect for all members of our community? 

Elizabeth McKinney 
PINES Program Director 
Georgia Public Library Service 
A Unit of the University System of Georgia
1800 Century Place, Suite 150
Atlanta GA 30345
404.235.7141
emckinney at georgialibraries.org
http://www.georgialibraries.org/