[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

Fri Sep 18 11:07:38 EDT 2009

I concur--the larger stakeholders may have competing interests and all
of those interests might as well be represented at the discussion table
on teh front end.
Catherine 

________________________________

From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
Lori Ayre
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 11:04 AM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

That's great Elizabeth.  I think the community would like to hear more
and, more importantly, learn how they can get involved.  I think it
would be prudent to have representatives from several Evergreen projects
involved in the formation of any foundation.

Lori

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 6:44 AM, McKinney, Elizabeth
<emckinney at georgialibraries.org> wrote:

	The Georgia Public Library Service is currently working towards
forming a foundation to which the licenses and trademarks for Evergreen
can be transferred. After the Evergreen conference we identified a
viable avenue for forming a foundation, and we have jumped at the
opportunity. There is nothing further to report at this moment.  We will
keep everyone in the loop as this develops.  We are very happy to see
interest from the 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/

	----- Original Message -----
	From: "Catherine Lemmer" <clemmer at library.IN.gov>
	To: "Evergreen Discussion Group"
<open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>

	Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 9:35:44 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada
Eastern
	Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

	I am in favor of a foundation and would be willing to work on a
	committee to review the existing options and/or set up a new
foundation.
	In one of my past lives, I did a good deal of legal work for
non-profits
	doing exactly this--establishing 501(c)(3) corporations.  I
would tend
	to be counted among those that would find a stand alone
Evergreen
	foundation, rather than a joint Koha/Evergreen/all other open
source
	software, best way to proceed.   I simply believe that the
market forces
	that are involved do not make one universal foundation a
possibility.

	Catherine

	-----Original Message-----
	From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
	[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On
Behalf Of
	Hyman, Ben EDUC:EX
	Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 11:10 PM
	To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
	Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

	I concur entirely with Dan (thanks for reviving this discussion
Dan),
	and would love to see the community celebrating the creation of
just
	such a Foundation at the conference in Grand Rapids. Perhaps
that's
	being unrealistic, but sooner is better, IMHO. I suppose
Foundation
	establishment should precede celebration...perhaps an
exploratory work
	group could be nominated by the community?

	Ben Hyman
	Manager, Library Policy & Technology
	Public Library Services Branch, Ministry of Education, BC
	Phone 250.387.4043 or Toll Free 800.663.7051
	ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca <mailto:ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca>
	www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pls/ <http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pls/>

	From: Dan Scott <dan at coffeecode.net>

	Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:22 PM

	Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

	To: Evergreen Discussion Group
	<open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>

	There was a brief discussion shortly after the Evergreen
Conference
	about the possibility of setting up an Evergreen Software
Foundation [1]
	and most recently a proposal to set up a joint Koha + Evergreen
	foundation (which is probably a function better served by
something like
	http://www.code4lib.org/ <http://www.code4lib.org/>  in any
case).

	I posted a response to George's blog post [2] about the
difficulties
	that the Koha community has undergone recently and their renewed
effort
	to establish a foundation, but in that context I would like to
revive
	the discussion about an Evergreen Software Foundation by
suggesting that
	if such an entity is formed, it should roughly have the
following
	responsibilities:

	* Hold the trademarks, logos, and evergreen-ils.org/open-ils.org
related
	collateral in trust for the use of the community

	* Extend the community's development capacity (for example, by
funding
	the creation of developer training tutorials and workshops,
where
	development should be defined broadly to include documentation,
	usability, design, testing, etc)

	* Coordinate joint funding for the development of new features

	* Organize the Evergreen International Conferences

	Further, I suggest that we would be foolish to turn down the
Software
	Freedom Conservancy's [3] offer to serve, for free, as the
501(c)(3) [4]
	shell organization that would be able to hold the collateral and
	financial assets in trust for the foundation, and would accept
donations
	to the foundation and maintain corporate records and file the
tax return
	(again, for free). It has been stated several times that "it's
not that
	hard to file the paperwork for a 501(c)(3)", but I would argue
that an
	advantage of the Software Freedom Conservancy is that it is a
neutral
	entity.

	[1].

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.libraries.open-ils.general/1258

<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.education.libraries.open-ils.general/1258
	>

	[2]. http://www.parser.ca/z678/2009/09/16/koha-manoeuvres/
	<http://www.parser.ca/z678/2009/09/16/koha-manoeuvres/>

	[3]. http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/
	<http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/>  - "As a fiscal
sponsor for
	FOSS projects, the Conservancy provides member projects with
free
	financial and administrative services, but does not involve
itself with
	technological and artistic decisions."

	[4]. As a Canadian, I don't care about 501(c)(3) status because
I get no
	tax advantages from it.

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