This is a straw person, a start at a structure to hang our thoughts on about the next stage of the Sakai Project and the SEPP. I make no distinction between them in this, btw. It is heavily indebted to discussions on this group and the Sakai and Plone Foundation web sites. It is just a start, and will be added to daily as we move along here. Straw people expect to get the stuffing knocked out of them, so let's get going.
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Sakai Community Source Project - Proposed Charter v0.1_JH
The Community Source Model - Stakeholders and Open Source
Every community of open source development has had to define itself in the process of developing its codebase. The Sakai open source project is no different. We do, however, have the opportunity to examine current models and extend them so they fit the demands of our community, and modify them as reality imposes its judgments. In this initial setting down of the principles, processes and practices that have come to constitute our community, and establishing their organizational embodiments, I will be drawing from some well-known models of open source organizations (Apache, Plone, and FS Foundations and Linux.
And we will be departing to some extent from all of them. We have been founded on the investments of institutions of higher education, and the contributions of individual developers and contributors of all kinds (those providing support, documentation, etc). Our organization will recognize these contributions and construct a community that can provide the continuity that institutions require and the freedom that contributors demand. Overall directions will be generated by representatives of the contributing institutions, and technical decisions will be made by the project's development team. Contributing individuals, whether software developers, tool designers, interface designers or documentation writers, will have the freedom to create whatever they desire, and the support necessary to integrate it into the Sakai environment.
The goal of the organization is to create a thriving ecosystem that can support all the needs and provide all the incentives necessary to make this effort successful. We are building on open source community principles of openness and respect for individual decision-making and contributions, and providing the foundations of sustainability that will hasten this community's acceptance by institutions with institutional responsibilities. We hope we can strike the right balance.
The Community
The Sakai Community is constituted of Members that can be Institutions or Individuals: for the technical direction of the project components, we look to individuals and a meritocratic model; for the overall direction of the project, we look to institutions that are resource-providing stakeholders and a representational model.
Commitment to Open
The Sakai Community is committed to open source, available to anyone to view, download, modify and redistribute (see license).
We are committed to open use and development of the code, by commercial or non-commercial developers (again, see license).
We are committed to open communication about the development and activities of the community of developers and stakeholders. See sakai-dev, sakai-usr, Sakaipedia, jira, sakaiproject.org (and, in future, more open notes of meetings, including the board, arch team, etc)
Committed to Diversity
The Sakai Community is also committed to allowing members to carry on their activities in the manner they see fit; so, for instance, we allow for gated, private and invitation-only discussion areas, mail-lists and wikis, where groups of like-minded developers and workers can work out ideas before making them public. We encourage everyone to be as open in their communications as possible and thus reap the benefits of many eyes and many minds touching a problem, and while we require this openness in many areas, we do not require it in all.
Philosophy
While there is not an official list, these six principles have been cited as the core beliefs of philosophy behind the foundation, which is normally referred to as "The Apache Way": (I'd like to add them somewhere, maybe with changes below to make them the Sakai way- JH)
- collaborative software development
- commercial-friendly standard license
- consistently high quality software
- respectful, honest, interaction (modified)
- faithful implementation of standards
- security as a mandatory feature
- rapid innovation as a goal (added)
The Sakai Foundation
The Sakai Foundation is formed primarily to (also much taken from Apache)
- provide a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects around the Sakai codebase by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure;
- create an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals can donate resources and be assured that those resources will be used for the project's benefit;
- provide a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal suits directed at the Foundation's projects;
- protect the 'Sakai' brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other organizations.
- In addition, the SF will provide the home for the structures for the coordinating and governance bodies and processes that realize the Sakai Community Source Project.
These include the Sakai Project Board, with these responsibilities (among others) ...
Overall Community Coordination
Setting overall directions, allocating Board resources (whatever they are), court of last resort for resolving disputes anywhere in project, local 'lazy' consensus is the goal, in the DGs, or in the Project Development Team (what is currently the arch team, TT, and support staff);
Conference Committee
Licensing Committee
Public Relations - sakaiproject.org, marketing
Composed of elected (by institutional members) representatives from the member institutions; with possibility of inclusion in elections of any other individuals the Board deems valuable; bootstrapped from existing Board and additions (few) at the June conference, with limited terms for individuals (2 years, can be returned by vote); 2 special seats for SCA members 
; two special advisory seats for Lead Architect and another member of PDT - nominations come from Board and members
The Board may not appoint Committers; Committers come through the processes of the Project Development Team.
Project Development Team
With these responsibilities (among others):
- Maintenance of the integrity of the Sakai codebase
- Overall Technical direction - providing technical leadership in planning, designing and executing the central Sakai software offerings;
- Encouraging best practices in dev (unit testing, better quality, UI);
- Release engineering, QA,
- Kernel development,
- Tech support, of members and larger community; Sakaipedia, jira, confluence
- Some tool dev as resources allow;
- Tech support for DGs (which are chartered by the Board, supported by the PDT)
Composed of Committers to the Sakai CVS tree; bootstrapped from some set of "original committers" and added to by meritocratic methods (invitation based on work)
Discussion Groups
(maybe should be Development Groups to make the point clearer) with these responsibilities (among others):
- Tool development - project initiation, recruitment of collaborators if desired, integration with Sakai codebase and UI - This is how tools get built.
- Product support of all kinds, including user support
- Generation of any activity they see fit
- Simple, largely informational charter passed by Board (see current charter) - with sunset clause, some form of review at intervals
- Could add class of "incubated DGs" that are those somehow more supported by Sakai resources
(I also like most of the Plone Foundation goals, and would like to list/weave in some of them too- JH):
Plone Foundation Goals and Objectives:
a.. Provide clear, neutral, and sustainable ownership of code, trademarks, and domains.
b.. Establish an accepted decision-making structure for essential activities.
c.. Ensure that, as Plone grows, it remains a level playing field.
d.. Act as the voice of Plone for official announcements, press releases, and other communications.
e.. Promotional material, interviews, speeches, and other activities to grow Plone and the Plone market.
f.. Solicit additional funding and participation