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

Fri Sep 18 11:39:02 EDT 2009

Lori and all, 

The Georgia Public Library Service is an agency of the State of Georgia. We are bound by the rules of our state government as well as our parent agency, the University System of Georgia.   Our intent is to transfer all Evergreen interests, including license, copyright and trademarks, to a foundation/non-profit.  In order to do so we must work within the guidelines of our state laws. 

To reiterate, I concur that any/all interested parties should have a seat at the table. That is the primary intention of the foundation. As we progress to the point where we have a forum for all vested parties I will be sure to keep everyone updated. I look forward to the discussions that follow. 

Elizabeth

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: "Lori Ayre" <loriayre at gmail.com>
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 11:04:17 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
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. 