[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Minutes of the resource allocator summit

[Dan Scott]

Hi, I unfortunately wasn't able to attend the Resource Allocator
Summit but wanted to reply to a few of the points in the minutes;
hopefully Ben & Kathy's report out to the community will be able to
address some of these questions.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Galen Charlton <gmc at esilibrary.com> wrote:

<heavily snipped>

> Equinox's idea lab a potential model?

Could more context be provided for this question? If the discussion
was about adopting the Equinox Idea Lab as-is, it quite bluntly seems
like a way of centralizing funding, communications, and control of
development within a single company, and I'm fundamentally wary of any
such centralization.

> - If there were "pre-conference" events added to the annual
> conference, should there be an additional charge for an added day
> - Tutorials--ways to use these to raise community funds?

The PostgreSQL project successfully uses this model for several of
their conferences; there are one or two days of pre-conferences, with
half-day or full-day tutorial sessions, and the funds from the
tutorials are split between the presenter(s) and the conference, with
the fund split ranging from 30/70 to 50/50. Per
http://www.pgcon.org/2014/registration.php the per-tutorial rate is
$60/half-day. (And if you want to learn more about PostgreSQL, I would
highly recommend attending PGCon!)

> Needs identified:
>
> -Volunteers
> -Time
> -Predictable Resourcing

What aspects of predictable resourcing were discussed? Financial
contributions to pooled funding? Sweat equity, such as organizations
pledging to devote 1 person-day of their own
developer/documentation/graphic design/other skilled resources per
week for a year to a common effort?

> -Projects meeting needs of members (control meme)

More info / examples of projects not meeting members' needs would be
appreciated so we can analyze the mistakes that were made and improve
our efforts in the future.

>
> Brilliant ideas identified:
>
> -coffee fund for developers (incentive)

Huh. Did the developers in the room confirm this would be more of an
incentive than recognition?

Thanks,
Dan