Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Mission Statement for OpenACS

Collapse
Posted by Torben Brosten on
Nice starting drafts. Here's inspiration for a re-work. =)

What audience would read, understand (and retain) it?

Mission statements are like ethics code, administrative procedures or most any bureaucratic device written to affect behavior. Unless we are very careful, the act of discussing it may be more useful than the resultant document.

We need something practical, inclusive and directed... And the focus statement should be short. Think Monty Python's "seeking the Holly Grail", a mantra, battle cry etc.

Here is a suggestion distilled (and inspired) from the above drafts:

Mission Statement:

collaboratively develop scalable, re-usable, extendible database-driven applications

Then define what is meant by using these words. The description should be increasing in detail (and technical jargon).

A. collaboratively design, implement, and support the OpenACS system

B. build for scaling, re-using, and extending

What are the requirements of re-usable, extendible applications that scale?

1. ACID compliant database (link to doc about what this means, why it's important, what Openacs uses and why those DBs are chosen)

2. customizable (tcl code) (link to doc about this, why it's important..)

3. web server that's well connected to the database (aolserver) (link to what this means...)

4 ...

cheers,
  Torben

Collapse
Posted by Tom Jackson on

I thought a Mission Statement was more of a statement of what you wish to achieve, something which is actually a goal which can be measured. If it is worded as a statement of fact, which might require a true believer to to accept, it is much less powerful. A mission implies movement, momentum, but a statement of what we think we are, or how we wish to be perceived is like a cheap suit to the casual observer.

In other words it is much more believable when you say you want to achieve some end, rather than claiming you have already achieved it. A mission is something which allows you to measure any action done by the community. Will the action bring you closer to the goal? We do this informally every day, but usually each person has their own idea of what the goal should be.

I think it is great this discussion is taking place. A good result will have a positive impact on the activities of the community. So what should the mission(s) of this community be. Without much thought, I would offer simple goals:

  • Stability--at some point a stable core has to be produced where changes do not distract the community from working on other missions, right now stability is more a result of hand produced upgrade scripts. This might be phrased as a guarantee of investment.
  • Out-of-the-box application functionality--if applications are provided, they need to work. Tiny, easy to fix bugs, caused by frequent updates of related packages, leads new users to abandon the toolkit before they have discovered why they should be using it.
  • Enterprise level development environment--address the needs of organizations who need to satisfy growing demands without re-engineering for every new level of complexity or expansion.
  • Incentives for open development--an environment where academics, hackers and professional developers benefit from participation in the community and giving back what they can.