the future of the oslist -- news and a proposal

Chris Kloth chris at got2change.com
Sat Aug 21 11:34:25 PDT 2010 

Michael, et al.

I'm coming in late, but have read all the posts to date.

Like others I want to thank you for your work on this particular matter, 
as well as your list work on behalf of all of us over the years.

I support the principles that are driving the decisions.

I lack the technical and marketplace knowledge to assess hosting and 
software options - but trust those of you engaging in that conversation.

It appears that there have been financial pledges sufficient to support 
the one time costs, but it is not clear to me how the ongoing costs 
might be managed.  In any case, once an approach to funding has been 
arrived at I am willing to (a) help share the load of the one time costs 
in some way, and/or (b) put in my fair share of the ongoing costs.

Shalom,

Chris Kloth

Michael Herman wrote:
> 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 (oslist at gmail.com 
> <mailto:oslist at gmail.com>, for instance) a member of the new 
> oslist at googlegroups.com <mailto:oslist at googlegroups.com> 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)
>
>
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-- 
ÐÏࡱá


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