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 (osl...@gmail.com
<mailto:osl...@gmail.com>, for instance) a member of the new
osl...@googlegroups.com <mailto: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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