Calendula (was - RE: NOSI releases "Open Source Primer" for Nonprofits)
Hi everyone,
First, I'd like to thank and commend the whole team (Michelle, Katrin, Rich, Reuben, Anders, Amanda, Jamie, IBM, et al.) responsible for the "Open Source Primer" on an excellent job. Mission accomplished ... the paper had a target audience and I think you speak well to them.
Shifting gears a bit, I'd also like to thank Darryl below for sending the link to his Calendula project. I have the same itch that you do. I cannot believe the options for NPOs in the realm of fundraising databases -- the price/quality curve is the steepest I've ever seen in any industry that I've worked in (manufacturing, scientific software, financial, radio, and now non-profit) ... not to mention the proprietary lock in / lack of choice for the higher quality products. I have been also trying to put together a similar project to Calendula (yet taking a different route) and think that we could perhaps join forces to make this thing a reality.
I have browsed your CVS repository (http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/calendula/) and was glad to see that no code has been written yet and that the project is still in the "analysis" phase. I read over your article (http://fudosys.com/Calendula.html), the requirements document
(http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/calendula/calendula/REQ?rev=1.4&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup), as well as the other artifacts in CVS so that I could get a good feel for what you were thinking and so that I could (hopefully) intelligently contribute.
The first thing I would add to the requirements is I18N support from the very beginning. This is a very important feature, particularly in the non-profit world. For example, at my (somewhat) smaller agency here in NYC, we build and maintain applications which support localizations in 6 or more languages. And we have barely even scraped the surface of the amount of different languages spoken in NYC alone, let alone worldwide.
The second major design point that I would add to the requirements is scalability. This is a tricky one when it comes to non-profits. I think it is imperative to have the system scale down as well as up. The hardware resources in non-profits really span the entire spectrum from "super-crappy" to "better than most for-profit companies". Through some slick engineering and the applying of sound design patterns (particularly on the data access tier), this can be done in such a way that Calendula could run fine on a stand alone pc to being distributed accross multiple servers to support large amounts of users and high levels concurrency.
Third, I think with many applications today, a web interface is a must. For a fundraising app, I definitely think a desktop GUI (supporting a native look and feel for the client operating system) is mandatory but so is a web interface. A web interface would allow multi-site agencies to share a single fundraising database with great ease and not having to face issues of database replication and synching. I actually spoke to a senior development staff person at a multi-site agency here in NYC at a conference I was at recently and she expressed great disgust with the Raiser's Edge for this issue alone (not to mention the $$$$ of RE support, etc.).
I have more ideas for Calendula and would be interested in continuing this coversation, either off-line or on-the-list ... perhaps on the calendula mailing list (???) -- (I haven't signed up just yet but I'll do that today). If you (Darryl and others) are interested in joining forces on this let me know.
Two big components of seeing OSS become a reality for NPOs is:
a) Advocacy - with the "Open Source Primer", "Penguin Day" (http://www.penguinday.org), the amount of OSS sessions at NTEN (http://www.nten.org/ntc), and of course Jon Peizer's paper (http://www.uploads.nten.org/gems/RealizingthePromiseofOpenSou.pdf) this is starting to happen. Also, we should start seeing technology services organizations start deploying existing/well establish OSS technology in non-profit orgs (i.e. Linux, Apache, MySQL, etc. etc.) which will lead to a higher level of trust and "demystification" of the process in general.
b) Open Source User-Land Apps Tailored specifically for Non-profits - this is us (the developers) and projects like Calendula. In this arena, the real benefit of "open source" to NPOs is not the fact that they get the code (i.e. it's not a "feature" of the system) but that the open source development methodology supports a "virtual office" atmosphere such that a developer in, say, Washington State can meet up with a developer in NYC and begin to collaborate on a project with a shared vision ...
Let's start building product!
t.
http://www.dotorganics.org/~tpanzarella
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Darryl Caldwell [mailto:darrylc@fudosys.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 6:19 PM
> To: debian-nonprofit
> Subject: Re: NOSI releases "Open Source Primer" for Nonprofits
>
>
> Hey all,
>
> Excellent thread. Mark, thanks for bringing it up.
>
> I think Katrin and Michelle put it out there for just this sort of
> feedback. Here is my .02.
>
> The document would be better if it gave equal nods to both
> expressions.
> The only pragmatism to really consider is demonstrating
> productivity and
> end use case scenarios. It is certainly not too late for NPOs to learn
> the value of "Free Software", after all they take the lead from the
> technologists that are introducing the concept. I have shopped the
> following article around to quite a few and no one has
> stumbled over the
> terminology or concepts:
>
> http://fudosys.com/Calendula.html
>
> I invite NOSI folks to please look it over. While focusing on
> fundraising systems, it contains pragmatic scenarios of FLOSS
> in action
> (outside of dentistry).
>
> I wish I were going to NTEN, but I am not. Here is something I did do
> this week that I encourage everyone to do in their regions: I went to
> the NDOA Winter Conference here in Seattle. It is good to put on
> technology conferences for NPOs, it is also good to go to their
> conferences and hear their issues. NDOA (Northwest Development Officer
> Association, www.ndoa.org), hosts 2 conference a year for
> fundraisers to
> get training, network, share ideas. I got to network with many of my
> local organizations, they got to hear what I do and you all
> should have
> seen their eyes light up when I explained ideas like "...freely coping
> software without penalty" and "collaborating with your peers to help
> create the software you need."
>
> There was one tech session on creating and designing a fundraising
> database. I was there, I listen to their pains, mentally
> ticking off in
> my head how many were directly due to relying on proprietary software
> (most). When my moment came, I raised my hand offer my
> perspective which
> the speaker and many members of the audience were very
> receptive too. I
> also suggested that those who wanted to know more should contact me.
> Five of the 20 in the room asked for my contact info. I talked it up
> with my table mates at breakfast and lunch as well and folks were
> interested.
>
> There are conferences like this in your areas. Look for them,
> call up a
> NPO near you to find out which associations they belong to,
> get on their
> mailing lists, enter their discussions. They really do want
> to know that
> we are here.
>
> So get out there!
>
> -D
>
>
> --
> Darryl Caldwell darrylc@fudosys.com
> Fudo Systems www.fudosys.com
> 206/567-5802 "Free Your Computers!"
>
>
> --
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