Hi Dan, Sorry, I didn't mean those as "things to resolve *before* implementing your suggested changes" but instead as conversation starters for discussions going forward *after* those changes are made. Updated copyright info and a donation button -- go for it, let the donations commence! :)
I like your suggestions about what additional content might go on that page in the future, too! Thanks, Jim > -------Original Message------- > From: Dan Scott <[email protected]> > To: Jim Craner <[email protected]>, Evergreen Discussion Group <open-ils- [email protected]> > Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Web site updates: Copyright notice and > Donation links > Sent: 17 Jun '11 09:58 > > On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 02:32:37PM -0600, Jim Craner wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > First, congratulations to all of you in the community who have been > working on the fiscal sponsorship and > > organizational sustainability issues -- I think that's a huge milestone, > so way to go! > > > > The copyright/intellectual property status of website content is something > that the Website Planning Team > > (http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=webteam) has started > discussing recently. We want to > > encourage creation and contribution of content from as many community > members as possible and > > encourage distribution and sharing of that content in the most > user-friendly manner possible while > > respecting existing copyright and Creative Commons licensing > provisions. Currently, we've bounced this > > issue to the greater Communications Committee for further discussion. If > you have any thoughts or > > questions or would like to get involved, you can check out our Website > Planning Team home page linked > > above or contact me off list. > > Great, I think I found the pertinent part of the wiki where the subject > was raising; I'm glad people are thinking about explicit licensing of the > content. Do you have any objections in the mean time to correcting the > current statement on the Web site so that it's 1) not laughably outdated > and 2) reflects that copyright over the content is held by more than GPLS? > > > The donation button/content/process is great news and it's not something > that the Website Team has > > discussed *at all* yet, but I have some conversation starters that I'd > like to share. > > > > * We don't just want to slap a Donate button up on the site, tell folks > *how* to donate, and call it a day. > > We need to tell folks *why* they should donate, *what* the EG community > will do with the donations, and > > recognize *who* is donating. > > Okay. But there are people who have already indicated in this thread > that they would like to donate to the project, presumably because they > trust that the project will do something good with their donations, and > presumably with no strings attached with respect to recognition. In all > honesty, it will probably take quite some time to draft policies around > all of these areas; do you have any objections in the interim to support > opportunistic donations by "slapping up" a donation page (via a link > under "Contribute") with an introductory statement like: > > " > Funds donated to the Evergreen project will be directed by the > Evergreen Oversight Board <link to Board description> in accordance with > the goals of the Board, which are to: > > i. promote, support, and advance the development of the Evergreen > software; > ii. support and facilitate the growth of the international community of > Evergreen users; and > iii. foster and protect the Evergreen assets. > " > > So, in the interim, it would come down to trusting the Evergreen > Oversight Board to allocate the donations wisely. Which seems reasonable > to me. As you suggest below, there are annual expenses that we have to > cover that until now have been covered by the good graces of various > organizations like GPLS and Equinox - domain name renewals, servers, > etc. > > > * With donors comes the need for donor management. Donor recognition, > donor cultivation, etc. are all > > issues that may not be recognized as important now, but will be in the > future, so we should be careful to > > preserve as much information about our donors and their donations as we > can. > > Although in the absence of an explicit privacy policy, in the interim we > should perhaps be discarding as much information about our donors and > their donations as we can, no? That said, a number of projects have a > donor page listing donors in descending chronological order, with the > option of being listed anonymously; that seems like enough to me, if we > were to state that as a policy for now. Thoughts? > > Large-scale donations may be something different entirely; some projects > recognize platinum / silver / bronze donors via icons & links on the > donation page. In the interim, in the happy event that an individual or > organization wanted to donate some large amount (say, $500 or more) and > get explicit recognition, it would probably make sense to contact the > Evergreen Oversight Board and trust that the right people would be > involved in making a decision and putting a repeatable process in place. > > > * A "donate" button gets better results if it's part of a larger call to > action. Maybe it's one part of an overall > > drive to have "everyone contribute as they can" - whether that's code, > money, documentation, testing > > time, etc. Maybe it's a drive for a specific fundraising target -- > pre-paying for ten years of "evergreen- ils.org" > > and related domain registrations, or paying the internship salary for a > Google Summer of Code intern. > > Maybe it's just telling the story of an awesome scrappy open source ILS > project that is growing rapidly and is > > seeking funds to build a solid organizational infrastructure to support > future growth. Maybe it's a way folks > > can get a free T-shirt and a warm fuzzy feeling for a $30 PayPal donation. > > Sure, that's part of a much larger conversation that may need to take > place, if we actually identify a need for large-scale fundraising. Some > projects such as the Perl Software Foundation, the Mercurial project, > etc, have raised funds to employ developers full-time for a period of > time; others have raised funds to help bring developers together for > hackfests or offer travel assistance to members from non-profit orgs to > conferences; etc. > > In the interim I see nothing wrong with enabling people to contribute if > they feel the urge. In the worst-case scenario, we get tens of thousands > of dollars of opportunistic donations and have to decide what to do > about that. The horror! >
