[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen web page for paid support vendors

[Mike Rylander]

While I am personally an active community member, I'm also an employee
of a service provider, so unless I see something that seems
particularly antagonistic toward service providers I'll stay out of
most of this discussion except to say this: in my opinion, the purpose
of the page is not well served if there is not at least some
demonstration of competency for the specific services or products
offered by a vendor or service provider.  I don't know what sort of
vetting should take place, and I realize that there is a burden
involved to fearless our volunteers, but I'm of the opinion that a
blanket "caveat emptor" is enough to help those looking for Evergreen
services if there are, in fact, inaccurate offerings listed.  I wish I
had a solution, or even a suggestion, but I'm not sure I'm the one to
be offering such in this particular case.  That said, if others feel
my input would be valuable I'm happy to speak publicly or privately
about possible solutions to any real or perceived problems.

However, on a more positive note, I'd like to address Kathy's question
about third-party services and vendors.  I believe that the "vendor
page" could be used to good effect to reward (or, perhaps, highlight)
those third party vendors that are active contributors to the project.
 Those that sponsor or implement specific, measurable feature
improvements in Evergreen don't fall into the "support vendor"
category, but go beyond "our stuff works with Evergreen because we
followed standard X."  Vendors of that type don't currently have much
representation or exposure, but they are important.  I'll give a
couple examples (of which there are quite a few more, actually) to
help clarify:

 * EBSCO sent a developer to the 2012 hackfest with the expressed
purpose of implementing NoveList Select functionality in Evergreen,
and they wanted to do that so they could make sure Evergreen will
continue to be able to integrate their content. (They partially
sponsored the event, too, but that's a different thing.)
 * PV-SUPA sponsored development to integrate their RFID hardware with
the Evergreen staff client, and enthusiastically agreed to have it
developed in such a way as to allow other 3rd party products to
integrate in a similar way by paying to have a plugin framework built,
instead of pushing for a special-case integration just for them.

Recognizing 3rd party contributors of this sort, along side direct
service providers, would provide incentive for future and broader
collaboration and contribution, and highlight those external products
and services that have both (actual) external and community backing.

Thoughts?

--miker


On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:28 PM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> At the June Oversight Board meeting (minutes available at
> http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=governance:minutes:2013-6-20),
> I raised the question of whether the Evergreen community should develop a
> policy regarding the paid support vendors that are listed on the Evergreen
> web site at
> http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:evergreen_companies.
>
> I don't think the community should be in a position of endorsing any
> Evergreen provider. However, I think it's important that the companies on
> the list do indeed provide Evergreen services so that users don't waste a
> lot of time investigating companies that don't really work with Evergreen.
> There was a consensus at the Board meeting that a policy should be
> considered.
>
> I would like to get feedback from others in the community on the guidelines
> you think should be used for this page. As an example, Koha asks support
> providers to follow the procedures outlined at
> http://koha-community.org/support/paid-support/how-to-get-listed/. The Koha
> community asks support providers to send an e-mail to the general list with
> contact information and a description of services provided. The providers
> must also show their support for the community by adding a visible link to
> the Koha web site.
>
> I think the Koha guidelines might offer a good starting point for the
> Evergreen community.
>
> During the meeting, there was discussion about whether we should define what
> an Evergreen service is. Migration, hosting, support, development, training,
> and implementation seem like obvious Evergreen services. Should peripheral
> devices or third-party services that work with Evergreen be included or are
> they a different animal?
>
> Does everyone like the Koha model of requiring listed vendors to add a
> visible link to the project web site?
>
> Does anyone have any other thoughts on the subject?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Kathy
>
>
> --
> Kathy Lussier
> Project Coordinator
> Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
> (508) 343-0128
> klussier at masslnc.org
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier



-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com