thanks Michael
Your suggestion sounds good to me.
Denise
On Aug 19, 2010, at 12:38 PM, 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 (osl...@gmail.com, for instance) a
member of the new osl...@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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