[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Draft rules of governance for Evergreen Software Foundation - for discussion

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On Oct 7, 2010, at 9:50 AM, Dan Scott wrote:
> If Magical Library is not part of a consortium, then yes, under
> 2.2(a)(ii) they would continue to qualify for membership simply by
> continuing to run an Evergreen system in production use.

To quote 2.2(a)(ii), the contributing-qua-running-Evergreen clause is:

"running an Evergreen system that is in production use, including those libraries whose Evergreen catalog is hosted by another party or is part of a consortium;"

One of the intentions of the wording was to not preclude membership just because a library happens to have a third party host their installation, and the same consideration arguably applies to some consortia.  Consequently, I think there's some tension between 2.2(a)(ii) and 2.2(b) that should be resolved.  While some consortia are organized such that the member libraries would expect the central agency to represent them in organizations like the Evergreen foundation, not all consortia are like this.  For example, I know of at least one Evergreen group that is much more like a set of independent libraries who are sharing a database but who are not otherwise tightly integrated.

My personal preference is to not close the door to consortium members who do desire membership in the foundation while not putting the foundation in a position where it has to care about the particular governance structure of one consortium or another.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
VP, Data Services
Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
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