From its inception as Hydra, Samvera has been designed to provide a generalizable, portable framework that would meet the needs not only of the three original institutions, but also those of a wider community. Originating as a multi-institutional project spanning three universities (Hull, Stanford and Virginia), and with support from Fedora Commons, Samvera has since expanded to include like-minded institutions with similar needs, technical infrastructures and complementary systems.
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Community Structure and Responsibilities
Adopters
Samvera is committed to being free and open source software. Adopters are members of the Samvera Community who use the software. The Community would not be what it is without adopters. Adoption, and all kinds of contributions big and small, can build toward Partnership.
Partnership
Samvera Partners are individuals, institutions, corporations or other groups that have formally committed to contributing to the Samvera Community. Samvera Partners collectively advance the project and the Community for the benefit of all participants.
The Samvera Partners contribute to groups that coordinate activity from multiple institutions and development efforts. These include the Steering Group, the Roadmap CouncilRoadmaps Alignment Group, the Core Components Maintenance Group and Samvera’s Interest and Working Groups, as well as teams working on specific projects and solutions such as the Avalon Media System, Hyrax, and Hyku.
Partnership is earned by actively contributing to the Community, as provided in our Bylaws. Partners:
- Contribute. In any one or more of: code, analysis, design, documentation, presentations and other forms of communication, marketing, support, funding, participation in working/interest groups, or other resources.
- Meet. Participate in Samvera Partner meetings and other conversations that shape our future.
- Vote. As a Partner, it is a duty and privilege to vote on elected positions and on other matters of importance.
- Lead. Help lead the way by participating in the governance of Samvera. Partners may provide input on the Community and technical direction up to the highest levels, and represent Samvera to the broader community.
- Stay Informed. Additionally, be among the first to be notified of any known security issues and fixes, ahead of the information being made public.
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- The right to vote in formal Samvera decision making (one vote per Partner institution)
- The right to put up candidates for election to the Samvera Steering Group
- The right to attend Partner meetings and Partner calls
- The right to advance information about any security vulnerabilities discovered in Samvera software (via the Partners’ closed mailing list)
- Centrally coordinated shared best practices for common legal and financial services issues relating to
- Rights management
- Financial stewardship
- Legal issues (including trademark)
- Marketing (including website and wiki)
- An annual Samvera Connect conference
- An annual Samvera Virtual Connect
- Access to the services of any Samvera appointed employees to help further local Samvera initiatives
- Public acknowledgement of Partnership in/on appropriate publicity materials (including the website and wiki)
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- Electing representatives to the Steering Group
- Community maintenance and growth
- Collaborative roadmapping (technical & community)
- Samvera application development
- Governance of, maintenance of and code contribution to the core components
- Design contribution: UI's, API's, data models, et al.
- Documentation and sharing of contributions, eg. through http://samvera.github.io/
- Community infrastructure provisioning & support (Bug trackers, Continuous Integration Servers, Web site, Wiki, etc.)
- Maintenance of the official Samvera website
- Resource coordination
- Recruitment
- Community advocacy (e.g., public speaking, writing articles)
- Participation and leadership in "Interest Groups" and "Working Groups" within the Samvera Community
- Meeting organization & planning
- Determining Community strategy
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The current membership of the Samvera Steering Group can be found Samvera Steering Group membership.
The current set of Bylaws governing the operation of the Steering Group can be found here.
Samvera Code Development
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Join the samvera-tech group and mailing list listed on our Get In Touch page
Join the #dev channel on the Samvera slack organization - find instructions on the Get In Touch page
Submit code to the Community (see guidelines), contribute resources to the group, and engage in the technical development process.
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Our code development is overseen and coordinated by a number of groups. The Roadmaps Alignment Group exists to align the roadmaps of the various Samvera code initiatives where this makes sense. The council comprises the product owners of the core Samvera components and Solution Bundles and of representatives from relevant Interest or Working Groups. The essential elements of the Samvera code are maintained by the Core Components Maintenance Group which is devoted to the ongoing maintenance of identified core components via planned sprints organized in communication with the product owners. Hyrax, the repository toolkit that underpins other solution bundles has two key working groups: one for coordinating development, and another for its roadmap. Our solution bundles (Hyku and Avalon) each have their own development teams responsive to the needs of, and advised by, their users.
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