[Koha] Fwd: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)

[Ben Ide]

Interesting...

Can anyone think of a reason why a joint effort between the two groups
would be a good/bad idea?  Are the two groups too different to form a
collective foundation?

Thanks for reposting this.
-- Ben

2009/9/18 vtl at scls.lib.wi.us <vtl at scls.lib.wi.us>:
> For those of you who are interested in establishing a Koha foundation, this
> may be of interest.  The Evergreen folks are trying to do the same.  Perhaps
> we can learn from each other in true open source fashion.
>
> Vicki
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Hyman, Ben EDUC:EX <Ben.Hyman at gov.bc.ca>
> Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen foundation (again)
> To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Vicki Teal Lovely
>
> Software Applications Supervisor
> South Central Library System
> vtl at scls.lib.wi.us
> (608)261-9109
>
>
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