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- As Fedora 3 moved into 4/5, caused some reputational issues in the community
- Some of that lingers even with Fedora 6 out
- Need to get more information
- e,g, How many installs are there? What are the sizes? What versions? What other tools are they being used with (e.g. Islandora, Fedora)?
- Last datapoints come from survey in 2017
- Can we get data from the software itself?
- Privacy challenges
- Privacy laws stricter in Europe than NA
- Plan from Steering: Get together on the next Tech Call (March 17 11-12 ET) to talk about kicking off a process to see what can be done
- One model: OJS has a "beacon" that sends back basic information upon installation (opt-in)
- Won't help with existing versions/deployments of Fedora but could help in future
- Scott: More online documentation aimed at current Fedora users (and those who inherit an existing Fedora and want to know their options) could be helpful
- Current registry is voluntary, only a few recent updates
IMLS Grant Update (Arran)
- Next phase was supposed to be hosting an in-person migration workshop
- Asked about this in survey - based on results and limited response (10), general feeling is people aren't ready to think about migrating or aren't willing to travel yet
- Beginning process of looking at creating digital content in place of in-person workshop
- Possibility of virtual event but scheduling could be challenging
- Hire outside firm to do professional recording/production of video content
- Look at transcription, language translation for this content to make it more accessible to broader portion of community
- Possibility of organizing an online session with combination of synchronous instruction and independent work
- Will be looking for members of community to participate in recorded presentations - let Arran know if interested
Technology Update (Arran, Danny)
- See report that went out in advance of the meeting
- Team mostly focused on bug fixes
- Planning 6.2 release by end of March
- Bug fixes, dependency updates
- New feature: stats reporting - basic stats on content of repository, # of objects: binary vs. non-binary objects, by MIME type, etc.
- Camel toolbox has been released
Contributor License Agreements (Danny)
- Have been maintaining CLAs since project began. Don't have 100% coverage for all small contributions but have CLAs for major contributors
- CLAs falling out of fashion in open source projects, cause drag on project, esp. when large numbers of contributors
- DSpace, RedHat do not use CLAs
- Issues mainly theoretical; in practice, has never been a problem
- See Contributor License Agreements: Do we really need them? for pros and cons
- Some motivations no longer apply given Git/GitHub
- Has Lyrasis consulted legal counsel? No
- Thomas: Would make it easier to change license later on
- Jon: Individual developers employed by institutions not able to enter into legal agreements, CLAs help with this, but still not be a big issue
- GitHub can help automate CLA process (at least individual - not institutional - CLAs) - Samvera is moving to this
- Scott: What are risks of not having CLAs? May want to consult with lawyer
- In Apache Software Foundation, CLAs are required for committers but not contributors (though encouraged for committers) - could be a compromise
- If licensing processes are changed, would update the welcome package/code of conduct to reflect
- Are other updates to CoC necessary?
- Arran will share CLA text with the group to help us fully consider this issue