[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Interesting proposal about approachingEvergreengovernance

[Chris Cormack]

2009/5/23 Jonathan Rochkind <jonathan at dnil.net>:
> 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.
>
Just my 2cents as an Evergreen outsider but Free Software participant,
I think the main goal on whatever you create should have as an aim
definitely not creating an Us and Them type situation. Like exists
with Proprietary software and User groups.
With a Free Software project like Evergreen, the users are the owners,
the developers are the owners, the developers are users, the users are
developers ... :)

Chris