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

Fri Sep 18 11:38:58 EDT 2009

I will go further and ask Elizabeth why GPLS was working on establishing 
an Evergreen foundation in an apparent vacuum. It seems that many big 
players in the Evergreen community were unaware of this activity. I very 
much appreciate everything GPLS has done for Evergreen (such as developing 
it in the first place!), but I believe it is crucial that establishing a 
foundation be a community, not GPLS, endeavor in order for it to be truly 
successful.

Paul Weiss
Sage Library System

At 2009/09/18  08:07 a, you wrote:
>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 
><<mailto:emckinney at georgialibraries.org>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
><mailto:emckinney at georgialibraries.org>emckinney at georgialibraries.org
>http://www.georgialibraries.org/
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Catherine Lemmer" 
><<mailto:clemmer at library.IN.gov>clemmer at library.IN.gov>
>To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" 
><<mailto:open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>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: 
><mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org>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: 
><mailto:open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>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
><mailto:ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca>ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca 
><mailto:ben.hyman at gov.bc.ca>
><http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pls/>www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pls/ 
><http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/pls/>
>
>From: Dan Scott <<mailto:dan at coffeecode.net>dan at coffeecode.net>
>
>Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 4:22 PM
>
>Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)
>
>To: Evergreen Discussion Group
><<mailto:open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>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/ 
><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 
><http://evergreen-ils.org/open-ils.org>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
><<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/
><http://www.parser.ca/z678/2009/09/16/koha-manoeuvres/>
>
>[3]. 
><http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/>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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