the future of the oslist -- news and a proposal
Koos de Heer
koos at auryn.nl
Sun Aug 29 01:30:16 PDT 2010
Hi Michael, Chris and others,
Thanks Michael for doing all this research and
drafting such a careful proposal. One slight
worry I have is that any service that is for free
at the moment, like Google Groups, may not stay
for free in the future. I have set up groups on
other services, that were free in the beginning
but then at a later stage took away the best
features from the free account to put them into a
paid service. Only the very basic service
remained free. I hope Google groups (or any free
service that we may decide to join) is not going
to pull a trick like that on us.
And of course I am willing to help.
From a rainy and windy Utrecht,
Koos
At 20:34 21-8-2010, Chris Kloth wrote:
>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
>>(<mailto:oslist at gmail.com>oslist at gmail.com, for
>>instance) a member of the new
>><mailto:oslist at googlegroups.com>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://MichaelHerman.com
>>http://RonanParkTrail.com
>><http://ManorNeighbors.com>http://ManorNeighbors.com
>>http://ChicagoConservationCorps.org
>><http://OpenSpaceWorld.org>http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
>>
>>312-280-7838 (mobile)
>>
>>
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>ÐÏࡱá* *
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