May 08, 2023 Meeting

Meeting conducted at 08:30 Eastern / 13:30 UTC / 14:30 CET

Meeting link:
https://meet.google.com/uqu-iuik-iyp

Attendees

  • Allison
  • Jimmy
  • Jos
  • Bryan
  • Heidi
  • Heather
  • Laura
  • Shabnoor

Publication Updates

Opensource.com

With the recent changes within Red Hat Opensource.com will not continue to accept new publications. Current articles in process will be published, but the site will then go into an archive mode.

With that, the community would need to discuss alternatives for publishing going forward. The Open Source Initiative have offered to help the broader community.

The blog of the Open Source Initiative should be able to host some of the content that used to go to opensource.com (blog.opensource.org is called Voices, plural because it’s designed to be a resource for the community).

Other personal offers have been expressed on the OSDC mailing list.

Bryan: We not only lose the venue but we lose the editorial capacity from Opensource.com (in my opinion, the more irreplaceable asset)

Heidi: Open us up to a broader discussion about support and sponsorship. Not just a discussion of “where we’re publishing” but also how we’re funded and supported

Heather: Loss of Opensource.com reverberates across multiple sub-communities that called the platform home (humanitarian open source communities, etc.)

Laura: Is this decision to close the platform reversible?

Shabnoor: We’ve been liaising with stakeholders internally to get concrete answers to our specific questions about what is and is not possible

Jimmy: Early signs point to the fact that the decision will not be reversed

Shabnoor: Lots of unanswered questions right now, and we can help the team think through the particulars if we go to them with specific questions; we can guide that conversation

Questions for Red Hat

About Opensource.com

  • can we have an sql dump of content published under the open-organization?
  • can we have a clear statement on the opensource.com community - can we migrate elsewhere
  • Can we have an sql dump of each individual contributor for all the opensource.com authoers - we should champion for others!
  • can we have the data analytics on the opensource.com - views, readership etc? we would need this data to be able to migrate/rebuild somehow.
  • If we do move our content, will they help with redirecting or posting an article letting people know we’ve moved?
  • what do we do about in progress articles - ron, heather - where do these go

Questions for Red Hat Open Source Program Office

  • What happens to our URLs – theopenorganization.org, theopenorganization.community, theopenorganization.tv?

Notes from BB conversation with Jason Hibbets

  • Jason confirms that the plan (as initially stated) is to publish all materials currently in the Opensource.com editorial pipeline and then put the site into read-only “archive” mode; the site will not accept new submissions at this time
  • The Enterprisers Project (the next logical choice of publishing platforms for our community) is completely shut down; entire staff laid off
  • Only two members of the Opensource.com staff are still employed at Red Hat and have access to materials and infrastructure (Jason is not one of them)
  • Drupal export options are available but at the moment neither Red Hat nor the community have concrete plans to exercise them
  • Drupal database can be exported, as can specific portions of it (e.g., all articles tagged “Open Organization”); however, doing this requires backend access (which now only two individuals have)
  • Exporting articles in XML via RSS may also be possible (we’d need to assess)
  • Jason thanks everyone for their thoguhts and well-wishes and wants everyone to know he’s taking it in stride, on a bit of a self-imposed hiatus, and enjoying some extra time by the pool with his family (his son was doing backflips into the water when Bryan called and Jason was alternating between explaining Drupal database exports and reminding his son of pool rules)

Actions

  1. technical followup - Bryan to coordinate with Red Hat teams (Jason, Shabnoor/Jimmy/Heidi)
  2. risk assessment for openorganization (heather offers to help)
  3. budget assessment for a move (time + resources)
  4. vision for the future - what do we want from this network
  5. who else can support this community (e.g. OSI, Mozilla, OKFN etc etc etc)

Infrastructure

  • Discourse platform recently renewed until 2024-04-29
  • Renewal of domains:
    • theopenorganization.org: Registry Expiry Date: 2023-10-16
      • migration of a domain name between organizations can take up to 1 month
    • theopenorganization.tv: Registry Expiry Date: 2024-05-04
    • theopenorganization.community: Registry Expiry Date: 2023-06-16
  • Hosting of theopenorganization.org could potentially be stopped without any notice depending on current contract.
  • Hosting of Hedgedoc, notes.theopenorganization.org, could potentially be stopped without any notice, losing access to those notes/docs.

Project Updates

The Open Leadership Assessment

When Heidi leaves Red Hat, she’ll be at hklonline@yahoo.com

Open Org TV

(no updates this month)

Ambassador Updates

Jimmy Sjölund

Moving ownership of the YouTube channel to my personal account as well as Bryan. Inquire internally about future statuses of Red Hat support of infrastructure.

Heather Leson

Thank you, Red Hat people for giving us a home and inspiring us all these years.
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team will be running membership leadership sessions with a consultant. I want to see how (someday) we can use the Open Leadership Assessement. After talking with Shabnoor, we will do this after the governance engagement spot. (May - August 2023)
Leading the IFRC Global Innovation Summit - Digital event. Will be hosting an ‘open meetup’ on all things open in our network. (June 2023)
Had an article with Unicef. I parked it until this call before I decided what to do with it.

Laura Hilliger

Sending love and solidarity to all my friends at Red Hat, especially within this group. I’ve been doing A LOT of sending love and solidarity because of tech layoffs and am available if anyone needs a chat. We’ve doubled down on work around worker owned cooperatives as more and more of my network is experiencing this.

Bryan Behrenshausen

I’m going to double down on my work to migrate/back up our archive of written materials (the list of everything we’ve written since 2015, with links, etc.); this will be on GitHub so it’s open and can be distributed.

Allison Matlack

Been working within GitHub Engineering to re-define “How we communicate” as an org that wants to be open. :slight_smile: Our next big project will be re-articulating our culture and values as an organizaton. Obviously using all our resources in the process.

Next meeting

Next Ambassador meeting will be 2023-06-12 at 08:30 EST / 14:30 CEST / 21:30 JST.