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Fedora Strategic Planning Sub Committee Meeting

Date: July 7, 2022

Attendees:

Arran Griffith
~~Laurie Arp~~
~~Tim Shearer (Steering Chair)~~
~~Jennifer Gilbert (Chair-Elect)~~
Robin Ruggaber
Scott Prater
~~Thomas Bernhart~~
Heather Greer-Klein
Jared Whiklo
Kate Dohe
~~Rosalyn Metz~~
Jon Dunn

ITAV Facet: Technology

ITAV Activity: https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/ITAV/ITAViP+Toolkit%3A+Technology?preview=/225150170/225150507/ITAViP_Tech_P3_ListOfDreams.docx

To Do:

Re-word, and formalize the #1 objective (10 mins)
Take top 3 ideas and research what it skills it would actually take to accomplish it (30 mins)

Group 1: Scott, Jon, Jennifer (List of Dreams - Group 1)
Group 2: Jared, Thomas, Rosy (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o6caqQm2N0EvUoTDffnSfFUshqSb4___z8nIXdSUmjg/edit?usp=sharing)
Group 3: Kate, Tim, Robin (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AxjcWlO3p-SJvV3W3FSqDUEK98AYioWdBZ8y6AvrKn4/edit?usp=sharing)

Take inventory of what skills are lacking to accomplish these things (15 mins)

How can we recruit these skills into the community?

Idea	Vote
The fedora application would go away entirely and we would rely on the standards it is built on and ocfl-java. Fedora would become a widely adopted specification/standard like IIIF that works with many technologies on either side talking to Fedora. The fedora API would become widely adopted. It would not be tied specifically to Fedora but instead be spun off as its own specification. Focus on being even more of a black box (plug and play in any repo system) that just works. Double down on API and specs.	8
Fedora deployment and maintenance is possible without heavy developer expertise; "push button" upgrade	6
Integration with digital description and preservation technologies/services- Archivematica, ArchivesSpace, ILS, APTrust,Chronopolis, etc.	4
Fedora could scale horizontally (sharded repositories, managed by a load -balancing, parallel processing capable main repo)	4
Fedora would have a robust one-click install front end UI, "lite" interface that is separate from the core, but built by fedora for those who don't use or can't afford samvera, islandora, or a "fat client" local development effort	4
Fedora would support high-latency (i.e. tape) storage, possibly through an S3 gateway, to enable large digital preservation use cases	4
Fedora would be written to support/facilitate international adoption Multi-lingual support	3
Fedora would support "side-loading" ingest mechanism for content moved directly into underlying storage (maybe someone will tell me this is already possible!)	3
Make a Fedora admin UI; Fedora would provide easy access to usage and storage analytics/metrics via a dashboard and API	3
Fedora would include standard deployment models for common environments, e.g. AWS, Kubernetes, etc. (maybe this is already true??)	3
default behaviors/configurations that are easy to understand and adopt (while keeping the ability to configure pretty robustly for those who can dig in). Maybe a "performant" setting, a "preservation" setting, etc.	2
Fedora would be tested/certified with a variety of cloud and on-premise underlying storage systems	2
Relevant installation information gathering to meet privacy requirements globally	2
The fedora application would be in a programming language that is more accessible to the library community.	2
Fedora standards implementation remains flexible to local implementations - can opt in to LDP, or out, for example. Fedora would not be bound to the LDP (Linked Data Platform) specification	1
Move to PREMIS 3 ontology	1
Keep fedora current in terms of technology (I'm happy with the current feature set of Fedora)	1
Fedora supports multitenant implementations	0
Fedora could replace DSpace as a self-submit institutional repository system	0
pre-built expression for indexing/harvesting (e.g. google)	0
Fedora's admin UI meets WCAG standards	0
redefine Fedora away from a piece of software, middleware	0
Replace the WebAC access control (partial) specification with something...better	0
Fedora embraces ethical source principles	0
Apache mod_fedora plugin to integrate Apache seamlessly with Fedora	0
Ability to (within the spirit of privacy, not just the law) centralize data that informs decision making (size, version, etc)	0

Notes:

"Dream #1" - Overarching theme: Fedora as an API

Idea of Fedora application “going away” - is it just that LYRASIS/Fedora program would no longer continue to exist but it would still be available within the community?

Overhead would decrease considerably by dropping the application and devoting ourselves only to the API
Would we just then be working ourselves out of existence
What does Fedora offer that is compelling, that distinguishes itself from similar efforts met by other applications, standards? (OCFL, Islandora, Samvera)

Things we need to think about - what is Fedora’s purpose or value in this new ever changing environment
- Where do we fit?
- With OCFL we know that there are institutions implementing OCFL without Fedora, so what value can Fedora offer
Is there clear enough messaging around why you need Fedora running and what is the value of having it in the stack?

Consider Top reasons to use Fedora:

Preservation value
API enables you to bundle metadata and bitsreams together in to objects
Flexibility & Data modelling
Migration to pure OCFL seems overwhelming
Access controls, indexing, camel toolbox and add ons that make workflow easier - may not get this from an API or persistence layer
Managing complexity at scale
Historical tie to the program/software - outlasted a lot of other products - “Permanence”
- If I migrate to something else, will I have to then migrate again to something new?
Community and resources, while small, is enough to warrant staying with the program instead of trying to roll your own
Most installations that we know of running Fedora or Fedora 3 are smaller institutions who aren't interested in API solely or don’t have the resources to run it as only as an API
Should start considering how community can be more involved in the development cycles of partner communities like Islandora/Samvera

Samvera Connect - presentation on migration paths or why an institution would want to consider moving to Fedora 6 (Suggestion from Heather about ways we can reach in to the Samvera Community)
Based on the above Top Reasons to Use Fedora, what can we do better at?:

Use at scale (UMD scaling issue)
S3 is a problem for OCFL

S3 performance is below on-disc performance

Could be related to the way files have to move in OCFL causing delays (at current state, looks like this may be the only answer)
Need to look for someone with more experience developing with the S3 client

Put call out to the community to try and gather user stories or user need to deal with this

Special topic Tech Meeting

Horizontal scaling - (ex. kubernetes connectors)