[okfn-discuss] Call for Participation in KForge Club

[John Bywater]

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IN KFORGE CLUB

We are pleased to be able to invite you to participate in KForge Club.

JOIN THE CLUB
Please participate by joining the club at the service desk:
<http://appropriatesoftware.net/foundation/KForgeClub.html>

BACKGROUND
For the last 4 years the costs of developing KForge have been borne by
the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Appropriate Software Foundation.

In order to support the development of KForge into the future we are now
creating a software club as a mechanism for sharing the costs of
development and guiding that process.  We should emphasize that KForge
will, of course, remain open-source software.

What is KForge?

KForge is an open-source (GPL) Python-based system for software and
knowledge project hosting.  It re-uses many existing best-of-breed tools
such as a versioned storage (subversion, hg), a tracker (trac), a wiki
(trac or moinmoin) and others (mailman, joomla, etc.) by adapting them
as services within the system's own facilities (projects, members,
roles, etc).  KForge also provides a complete web interface for
administration of project members and services, as well a
fully-developed plugin system so that new kinds of services can be
easily added.

Why KForge Club?

It is clear that there are common hosting needs across many software and
knowledge projects.  KForge Club is a way to share the cost of
developing project hosting capabilities, so that every project can
benefit from an open, high-quality, well-supported offering.

At this time, the key objectives are: to complete KForge v1.0 software;
to sustain the KnowledgeForge.net service; and to host the club.

SCHEDULE
Monday, Aug 3  2009 - Call for Participation
Monday, Aug 17 2009 - Call for New Proposals
Monday, Sep 14 2009 - Call for Interest
Monday, Oct 12 2009 - Call for Agreement

PARTICIPATION
Joining the club is free of charge.  Members will be involved in a safe
and transparent process of sharing common costs.  Members will be
invited to submit new proposals, and to comment on proposals submitted
by others.

The club will publish a prospectus of costed proposals.  Members will be
asked to evaluate the benefit of each proposal.  Possible shares of the
cost of each proposal will be discussed, and conditional agreements
drafted.

The club will call for final agreement of any conditional agreements.
Proposals that reach consensus are actioned, with progress reported at
fixed intervals.

The cycle will then be repeated.

Information on how clubs work is published on the club tutorial page.
http://appropriatesoftware.net/foundation/ClubTutorial.html

ABOUT US
KForge Club is hosted by John Bywater (Appropriate Software Foundation)
and Rufus Pollock (Open Knowledge Foundation).

The Appropriate Software Foundation is a service-oriented software and
organisation development consultancy, dedicated to creating and
providing open-source software services that enable small organisations
to accomplish their objects.

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded
in 2004 and dedicated to promoting open knowledge in all its forms.  It
is a leader in this field nationally and internationally.  The
Foundation's activities are organized around individual working groups
and projects, each focused on a different aspect of open knowledge, but
united by a common set of concerns, and a common set of traditions in
both etiquette and process.