hello all, a bit of very important news
and a proposal for
the future of the oslist.
the oslist -- in it's current form -- will cease to
exist within the next
year. i have been in contact with our boise state
hosts and with the
makers of the software that drives our list and
archives. i've developed
a bit of a work-around plan (working around paying the
software company or
anyone else large sums of money annually to run the
future of the list).
the softward company has confirmed for me that this
(rather non-standard use of
their software) is indeed technically feasible.
another nice thing about
it is that it makes the oslist structure look even
more like what we do in open
space meetings.
the oslist at boise state is done as of june 30th
2011, they are cancelling
their license and migrating all university groups to
googlegroups. on
that date, oslist will disappear, unless we do
something to move it.
IF we can find another organization to host us as bsu
has, then we can (pay
someone to) migrate our archive and user list and go
on our merry way, subject
again to the whims of their IT department.
IF, instead, we choose to fund our own implementation
of the listserv (brand
name) software, we can migrate our archives and
continue our conversation.
ALTERNATIVELY, or more creatively... we can contract
with l-soft directly to
set-up and maintain our archive, control that for
ourselves going forward, AND
set it up in a way that would add to the archive going
forward any postings
from any other email list, like germany, europe,
australia, uk, etc.
what's more, this turns out to be the cheapest option,
because we only need to
pay for listserv software for the archiving function,
rather than for a
full-blown list that will deliver to 700 people at a
cost of almost $2 for
EVERY message sent to the list (this assumes we would
pay for the service
rather than license and run this for ourselves.
harrison is fond of
saying that we have done all this without a marketing
department. why add
an IT department now?) this is my suggestion.
and this is what i'm proposing (offering) to do now:
1. migrate all of our members to a new oslist at
googlegroups (yes,
googlegroups. people who pay attention to such things
seem to prefer the
functionality there and since our list is public
anyway, there are no issues
with privacy and control of content. but we will also
archive in two
other places, a gmail account AND a listserv system
that will keep adding all
new posts to the old listserv archive.)
2. migrate the archive (12 years, i think, and on our
way to 29,000 messages)
to a new list that will have only one member account.
3. make that one member account (
[email protected],
for instance) a member of the new
[email protected]
AND any other lists around the world. THEN set that
member account to
forward everything it receives to the migrated
archive. so other lists
become like breakouts and the oslist archive a global
community record wall of
what's happening.
it this way, we achieve:
1. a new, free, and durable oslist at googlegroups,
with all the bells and
whistles there
2. the survival of the 29,000-message archive in
publicly-searchable
perpetuity, hosted by l-soft (makers of listserv
software)
3. the addition of all new oslist and other list
postings to the central
archive
what does it cost?
1. continuing the oslist conversation in a new
googlegroups oslist account
costs nothing.
2. forwarding to the archive of all os community list
mail from any list, costs
nothing
3. migration of the oslist archive and setup of new
archive list function costs
$500
4. the cost of maintaining the archive would be $500
per year
i'd expect that $500 is fundable through donations and
could easily be handled
in the normal course of business and budgeting of the
osi-usa. i assume
it's better to have a legal entity with a standing
bank account take
responsibility for it, rather than an individual or
loose group of
colleagues. but i'll leave it to osi-usa or another
group to say they'll
take this on.
i *think* that any other solution to this results in
one or more of the
following... loss of the archives, costs that run to
$3000 or $4000 annually
(and are totally variable based on list size),
reliance on volunteer community
members to be our global IT department, additional
cost of paying community
members to admin the system, reliance on the goodwill
of some other
organization (which might be generous initially but
could pull the plug with
less warning than we've been given now), no ability to
archive many lists in
our one online record.
i will check with boise state to confirm their support
for our migration.
i'm told by l-soft that migrating the archive to a new
location/list is pretty
simple stuff.
i'm willing to implement this, but not fund it. i'd
like at least four
others to sign on as stewards of the shift. more
would be fine. and
i hope osi-usa will be the official steward for
donations/funding matters.
i don't have time right now to discuss this with 700
subscribers. i'm
just one guy, one list member. this is just my
personal recommendation
and proposal. BUT... if there are concerns about any
of this, i'm glad to
try to keep up with clarifying questions.
if you think this is a good way to proceed, please say
so. if you have
something to contribute to the process (time,
attention, money, etc) please say
so. if you have concerns, let's hear them, too -- BUT
if you think we
shouldn't do something in this proposal, then bring
your own suggestions and
proposals for what we should do instead, making sure
that the solution as
modified (or replaced) is still complete (technically,
financially,
etc.).
since we don't have anything to discuss about IF we
should move or really even
WHEN we should move, the only question is HOW to
preserve the archive and WHERE
to continue the main conversation.
ideally, this would all happen when things quiet down
a bit at the end of the
year, mid- to late-december. that's when i would be
most able to support
these things. anyone else could do it sooner or
later, but i do think
that distinguishing our two tasks, maintaining the
archive AND continuing the
conversation, is a valuable way to think about this
now.
what can you contribute to this (new) beginning?
m
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
http://MichaelHerman.com
http://RonanParkTrail.com
http://ManorNeighbors.com
http://ChicagoConservationCorps.org
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
312-280-7838 (mobile)
