[okfn-discuss] Our vision: Why, How and What for the Open Knowledge Foundation

Tue Jul 14 18:32:51 UTC 2009

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Rufus Pollock<rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> 2009/7/14 Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org>:
>> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Rufus Pollock<rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> [...]
>>> (I hope i'm not offending
>>> anyone with this analogy!): i.e. a community built around a network of
>>> projects (and working groups) joined by shared understanding of
>>> openness (and its value) -- as opposed to something centrally driven
>>> and organized (and very strongly committed to a particular
>>> philosophy).
>>>
>>> * A clear espousal of openness with explicit application across a
>>> variety of domains (so not just content, not just data -- genes to
>>> geodata, sonnets to statistics ...). Many other groups/orgs are
>>> focused on one particular thing (e.g. openlibrary)
>>
>> The Apache umbrella analogy for OKF really helps me understand what
>> the OKF is and/or is trying to be, more than anything I've ever read
>> before -- I've never really understood exactly how all of the projects
>> I see mentioned in relation to the OKF hang together other than "very
>> loosely" but ASF-like makes that answer make sense to me.
>
> Thanks Mike -- this is really useful feedback.
>
> We do have a governance document which tries to make this a bit
> clearer: <http://www.okfn.org/governance/>
>
> However I think this is rather under-read and I think we probably want
> a nice diagram.

Honestly, I've just always ignored it because I didn't care how things
were governed. :) You might just want to start by retitling it
'organization' or 'structure'.

If Apache is the model maybe we should spend some time thinking about
what OKFN brings to the table for new projects- why would I want to
make my project part of OKFN? apache's answers include to potential
projects include:

* structure: when you become one of us, you inherit our organizational
structure, membership rules, etc.
* mentoring: we provide some collected wisdom until you transition out
of 'incubation' into mature project status
* infrastructure: web hosting, etc.
* legal resources
* etc.

to get these things you have to have a functional code base,
willingness to assign (c) to the foundation, etc.

What are OKFN's equivalents? How should OKFN strengthen/modify/etc.
those equivalents over the next five years?

[And Jonathan, that diagram was tremendously clarifying; really I
think some version of that should be posted somewhere on the website
and kept up to date.]

Luis