Thanks Brian. I'll keep this on my cubicle wall. > -----Original Message----- > From: Brian Bray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, October 29, 2001 5:24 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; > [EMAIL PROTECTED]; > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [OSHCA-work] Re: OSHCA organization (long) > > > Richard, thanks for asking such clear questions. > > > * Minoru must clearly define wether or not it is willing to transfer > > ownership of the OSHCA.ORG trademark to an independent > organization, and > > when that transfer would take place.> > Yes, it was myself acting as part of Minoru that proposed that OSHCA > become a democratic organisation and we would like very much > to get out > of the role of being the "dictator" of OSHCA. If OSHCA is > ready to be a > strong independent democratic and user-lead organisation, we will be > very happy to transfer ownership.
You've got a charter, and you have a directing body of people. A simple application may be the only thing left. I certainly cannot speak of how that gets done elsewhere, but for the U.S., here is what I can suggest: any non-profit or association is an independent organization, and is treated legally as an individual with respect to contracts, intellectual property, etc . . . After the organization is set up, the leadership and supporting cast can change as time goes on, but the organization remains intact. The OpenHealth group and Minoru has done some great groundwork policy wise and infrastructure wise (the website/mailing list) to prepare for that. Some examples: http://www.uddi.org, http://www.w3c.org > It is a common misconception that the organisational > structure of OSHCA > is not defined. The Openhealth list spent several months debating it's > current structure as a "working group" with independent supporters. A > major factor was that the U.N. organisations that sponsored the first > OSHCA meeting could not become members of a Non-Governmental > Organisation (NGO) such as a non-profit incorporated entity, but could > participate in a working group. We used the term "supporter of OSHCA" > rather than "member" to avoid being perceived as a partnership. I'll go through the lists' archives to pick up on this history. I need to learn more about those restrictions. Any links to information would help. > I think that a number of options should be discussed and developed in > some detail, including: > > 1) OSHCA joining or allying with another organisation such as > the U.N., > IMIA, FSF, or Software in the Public Interest (SPI) in order to gain > organisational structure without duplication of effort. As has been suggested elsewhere, alignment with the U.N. and/or EC is crucial. . . . snip . . . > I have also heard some people proposing that OSHCA become a > charity or a > for-profit corporation. A key factor in the official form of organization will be the handling of liabiliies, so perhaps it's a question of how much responsibility/liability OSCHA intends to assume. I would submit that a non-profit registration might be best on one country, while a simple non-registered association is best in another. In the U.S. a primary determinant of organizational type is the amount of liability the founders of the organization are willing to accept in business dealings. > > I don't have a specific opinion here yet, other than that the > status quo > is not an option and that some study and discussion will be needed to > understand all the issues. Exactly. Especially given the international nature of OSCHA, if we can assume that there will be registrations in more than one country, whatever is decided for a given country will need to make sense for that country. > What we need most is more people contributing content. We make our own > decisions about how much of our own resources to give to OSHCA and in > what areas. If you want the site to move in a different direction or > move faster, contribute! There is no point in complaining to us about > it, we are already doing as much as we can. That settles the content acceptance question. But what about the planned infrastructure? I'm open to an answer of "there is no plan because we haven't decided what's best." In that case I'm looking for Minoru to define a selection process of some kind. For example, there is a need for voting and other things, but presently there does not seem to be a published server-side standard, beyond simple HTML. Voting, dynamic content editing, and other more advanced features suggest something like PHP, Python, PERL, etc . . . Perhaps the server-side infrastrucutre you prefer needs clarification? > For the next stage, it would be nice if someone installed and tested > voting systems such as the one used by Debian and GNU.FREE > and produced > a report. The first vote is the big one (organisational > structure) so we > need to make sure that as many supporters as possible participate and > that everyone feels comfortable that they can participate fairly. Well, I'll certainly take a look at it for you. > > > The working group organisational form, the charter, the website, and > particularly the supporters of OSHCA have contributed to > making it quite > successful. It is very difficult for OSHCA to get "stuck" since any > supporter can contribute where they feel a need. There is always room > for improvement. In theory, yes. But I would suggest that until a contributor knows who they are working for, you'll find your volunteers reluctant. In the case of the conference information you requested, the ownership of submitted content is clear. In the case of volunteering to build OSCHA itself and the website, it's not so clear at this point who a volunteer is donating their time to. I mean, no offense but I'm not prepared to volunteer for Minoru at this point. I would volunteer to OSCHA if it gets its own registrations. > > -Brian > -- > Brian Bray > Minoru Development Corporation; Minoru Development SARL > The home of Openhealth(tm): http://www.openhealth.com > > 3, rue du Colonel Moll, 75017 Paris France > +33.6.8750.2465 > _______________________________________________ > OSHCA-work mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.linuxmednews.com/mailman/listinfo/oshca-work > Richard Schilling Webmaster / Web Integration Programmer Affiliated Health Services Mount Vernon, WA USA http://www.affiliatedhealth.org phone: 360.856.7129
