[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Interesting proposal about approaching Evergreen governance

[Karen Schneider]

Today at one of the "starting a foundation" discussion tables at lunch,
participants went back and forth about governance, nonprofit models, user
groups, and the need for cross-project prioritization of development
issues...

And then we heard a very interesting proposal from one of the projects:
instead of establishing a nonprofit and then seeing if its governance model
fits, why not do a pilot project out of which governance could be modeled,
tested, and then selected by the projects? That way, the governance
decisions could drive the organization of any other entities (such as
nonprofits and user groups), rather than vice-versa, and also, the growing,
informal "governance initiative" could have an early win.

The project could focus on one high-priority development-prioritization
issue that would benefit from cross-project input (everyone at the table
immediately said "acquisitions"). At its simplest, this could begin with an
online spreadsheet that would have a column for every known Evergreen
project, with the high/medium/low priorities (or mandatory/highly
desired/desired, if folks preferred that model) listed.

What say? Are people interested in this? Would you find it useful? Do you
want to help? :-)

An aside: there are so many variables in governance. (World's greatest
understatement.) Should there be a foundation AND a user group? Do the
projects need a "members' council"? Which state should a nonprofit be
organized in? (That's not a trivial question because every state is
different, and Evergreen's needs may not be met in every state -- for
example, we have many international projects.)  What should the bylaws be?
Should the foundation be largely a "figurehead" for protecting logos and
trademarks and so forth, or should it have a more active role?  Would
Evergreen's "foundation" needs be met if the project affiliated with a group
such as the Software Conservancy? Or would the project soon outgrow that?

Anyway, your collective thoughts encouraged.

-- 
-- 
| Karen G. Schneider
| Community Librarian
| Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
| Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712
| kgs at esilibrary.com
| Web: http://www.esilibrary.com
| Be a part of the Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009!
| http://www.lyrasis.org/evergreen
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