[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Interesting proposal about approachingEvergreengovernance

[Jonathan Rochkind]

On May 22, 2009, at 10:37 AM, Jason Stephenson wrote:
>
> I am, of course, assuming a traditional users' group along the lines  
> of CODI (of which my employer is still a member) where the users  
> prioritize development goals and request feature enhancements. That  
> kind of arrangement doesn't work in open source unless there is  
> already some foundation setup with whom the users' group can  
> coordinate.
>
> However, if that users' group is composed of the people contributing  
> to the project with code, time, money, and other resources, then it  
> might work, but after a while it would likely need some corporate  
> structure in the form of a foundation.

A user's group like CODI has corporate structure, CODI is  
incorporated.  What's the difference between what something called a  
'foundation' supplies with it's corporate structure, and what  
something called a "user's group" supplies with it's corporate  
structure?

I don't know if it matters what you call it, but I wonder if there's  
really a need for two different incorporated entities (a  user's group  
AND a foundation?) instead of just one.  Unless one is meant to  
respresent the active developers and contributors, and another is  
meant to represent the user's who may not be contributors/developers,  
and you think two different entities are necessary to adequately  
represent both those interests.

Jonathan