Where is the source/installation files?

Ah see it on Github. Is this the way to go?

Yes that’s right @joopkieftelapingvi, the source files live at http://github.com/loomio/loomio

that's good feedback @joopkieftelapingvi that it's not obvious
we used to have a big Fork us on Github banner, but it didn't work with new front page design.

there is actually a link in the middle of the front page on the words Open Source.

A link doesn't have to be a text link, right? The UX part is not where I should bring the experience about here ;).

Do you have to close the decision to replace it with a new refined one?

@joopkieftelapingvi yeah, close the current proposal to create a new one.

@robertguthrie What would be a better place and form according to you? Or how should we formulate it then?

@robertguthrie also, remember that according to the AGPL there should at least on the derived installations be public access to the (modified) source. Maybe make it an optional thing that you can see on the about screen?

@joopkieftelapingvi , I'm not entirely sure.

I'm quite happy that the front page says "free and open source software" in the middle, above the fold.

Also I think it would be nice to mention it again on the About page.. which is linked from logged in footer.

That seems like enough for me.

I'm confused. There is a link to the source on the front page.

Is there something in the AGPL that says we need to have a link to the source on everypage?

@robertguthrie when logged in, there seems to be no way to get there (or am I wrong?)...

The AGPL says that source of changes must be published. This is usually easiest (and definitely for derived installs) if from every page you can somehow link to the source.

@jonlemmon would value your input here too

Hey Joop, thanks for bringing this up.

However, I'm unclear as to the value here. We've got a clear link to the source code on the front page. Why does it need to be viewable when you're logged in?

I always try to find it on the front page too, but it's more than just a hassle to log out to be able to SEE the frontpage and find the link there if you are not even sure it should be there... And as said, with AGPL software it has some logic to have the link to the code easy to stumble upon, instead of only hidden in plain sight when you arrive at the website.

Personally I think we should just make it as easy as possible for people to find.

Lots of new users invited into Loomio never see the front page at all, or only briefly, so I think it makes heaps of sense to have easy access from within the app.

Is that your thinking @joopkieftelapingvi ?

@benjaminknightloom Yeah, that's it exactly.

I went back and forth about contributing to this topic instead of starting as new one, so forgive me if I decided wrongly. :) Forgive me also if I'm out of line or replicating a conversation happening elsewhere.

I think this thread highlights a communications challenge that loomio faces and needs to rectify. It affected me joining the community and also affects people I am introducing to loomio and trying to get excited about it.

Most people don't understand open source and will be confused by the fact that you are hosting "meta" discussions about loomio itself as well as other groups, all on the same loomio powered site at http://www.loomio.org where you also want to house and promote the project, the leadership team, and the open source goodness of loomio.

My suggestion would be to separate these out into different sites. Something like this:

1) www.loomio.org = official site of loomio the organization. Absolutely put FORK LOOMIO up on this site alongside the usual ABOUT, CONTACT, TEAM etc
2) blog.loomio.org = official blog - you are doing this already :)
3) meta.loomio.org = all "Loomio Community" groups and subgroups that are about using loomio and making it better
4) sandbox.loomio.org = test site for playing around with loomio functionality that is reset regularly

I would completely stop actually hosting other groups as soon as feasibly possible (when the docker is ready! :) and provide a migration path for current groups on loomio.org to move to their own self-hosted sites. Stop allowing people to start new groups on loomio.org.

Also suggest you provide a directory of vendors out there offering installations, recipes for installing it and hosts offering one-click installs, and if they exist, loomio sites willing to host groups for various purposes and communities of interest.

@tobiaseigen interesting proposal.

I would really like to see the eco system around Loomio develop to give people easier options for self hosting, especially for people who aren't experienced with Ruby on Rails.

It would be interesting to see a response from the Loomio team about the suggestions made.

@tobiaseigen @neilmorris I definitely agree that everything should be clearer (e.g. more info about the open-source nature of the project, easy access to the source code, and instructions for contributing and/or installing your own instance).

However, I definitely don't think we should discourage people from using the hosted service. With Loomio 1.0, we're moving to a less "group-centric" approach, where anyone can start a decision immediately within a minute of being on the site, without even having to set up a group. There's no way we could do this without providing a massively accessible hosted version of Loomio.

At the same time, actively encouraging people to set up their own instances is going to be crucial to growing the open-source ecosystem that Loomio needs to thrive.

Thanks for explaining, @jonlemmon.. I appreciate it. I don't know any details about your budget or business model, but I can't help but think that actually hosting groups is outside the generally accepted open source philosophy and will be a distraction for you as you try to support the throngs that will come looking for a free cloud-based service who should be self-hosting their own sites.

That said, I think it would be pretty cool to be able to spin up a loomio proposal when I need it without having to go through the tribulations of setting up my own loomio server. Something along the lines of change.org petitions but perhaps disposable so once the decision is made it's just saved as a PDF and deleted off the server.

@tobiaseigen Wordpress (one of the biggest OS projects of all time) provide hosting. And what's the difference between Wordpress providing hosting and an independent 3rd party providing hosting? If hosting can help us generate revenue, then instead of being a distraction it's an empowering resource that will help us to grow the open-source platform.

@jonlemmon Yup - you are right, and I can see that you want to build a revenue model into loomio and appreciate that. We all have to eat! :)

But even Wordpress has created a wall between wordpress.org (open source software) and wordpress.com (free and premium hosting built using wordpress software). I still think at the very least loomio should do that too if you're going to go that route - and also provide two other key features that wordpress has that you do not (yet): 1) domain hosting for groups that are clearly separate from each other; 2) import/export tools so users are not stuck on the hosted service when their needs grow or change.

@tobiaseigen #1 and #2 that you mention are both on the roadmap, so Loomio will have those features soon enough! :)

But also, why create a wall? The problem with Wordpress's model, in my opinion, is that it sets up two legal entities with conflicting desires: a not-for-profit which is aiming to provide the best tool possible for the most amount of people, and a traditional company which is trying to maximize profit to shareholders, potentially at the expense of the community.

In my opinion, we don't want to create a separate profit-maximizing company if we can avoid it. We want one organization with a single goal of maximizing social impact, and with profit being just one of the ways of helping to achieve that.

Your thoughts? I'm interested to know why you think setting up a wall is a good idea...

Thanks @jonlemmon - awesome news about the subdomains and import/export functionality. You guys are really on a great trajectory and I'm excited.

I don't know much about the actual business model of wordpress and that's not really my concern.. what I am talking about and what concerns me is simply that you have one big site that will have an identity crisis because it tries to do too much at once. :)

I do worry about your team and how you are going to manage building software and building a community around that software and providing support for groups hosted on loomio all on the same site. The needs are different, both for the various people on your team and for the various stakeholders who are looking for info, code, services, help etc. That's why I am suggesting splitting them off into different sites.

Looking again at wordpress - the many people I have turned on to wordpress over the years understand that wordpress.com is a place where they can go to set up and host their website. Many of them never have to know about wordpress.org because wordpress.com serves their needs just fine. But if and when the time comes when they need to self-host, they (or the devs they hire) will be able to head over to wordpress.org to get it. Only at that point is it necessary for them to know and understand that it's free open source software because they need to download it from somewhere and maybe get help with that.

Great discussion, thanks for sharing @tobiaseigen.

For what it's worth, here's my thoughts about identity/business models/etc:

I think of Loomio as a piece of functionality - I see my job as maximising the usefulness, accessibility, and spread of that functionality.

On loomio.org, we wrap that functionality in a particular identity: come on in, join the movement, change the world! Part of that identity is 'you can use this tool for free' and the other part is 'if you contribute money we'll do good stuff with it.' The crowdfunding campaign was the best example of that to date, and I expect there will be other fundraising drives in future. Personally I'm most excited about loomio.org and I would like to see it get to the point where the voluntary contributions from people who are getting tonnes of value from it are enough to make it financially self-sufficient.

There's a minority of people that want the functionality, without that identity. They don't care about the change the world stuff, and they don't want to be bugged about voluntary contributions. That screams 'business model' to me: we can charge for the identity customisation and replace the 'pay what you can' ask with a subscription fee. We're currently running a few experiments to test out that business model; with a bit of luck it could provide some useful income in the interim while we wait for loomio.org to become self-sufficient.

Whether that gets split off to a loomio.com domain is an open question. I like what Jon says about not splitting, but of course there's a reason that so many OSS projects do.

I experienced the same issue that the above participants reported before: I am used to the fact that links titled "open source" refer to a description of the software license actually used for the project. Thus it took me a while (to be honest: I searched the html source of the frontpage for "git") to find the hidden link titled "open source" and the other one attached to a small icon which is probably supposed to refer to the github branding (which I am not aware of - I rarely use a browser when interacting with github).
Visitors looking for the loomio software (not the community) would surely appreciate it, if you would use a more widespread verbal term (e.g. "Download", "Installation", "Get the source") in one of the usual locations (top or bottom of the frontpage).
There is no doubt that you fulfilled the legal requirements of the AGPL - it is just about meeting the expectitions of your audience. Thank you!

@tobiaseigen: I fully agree with your thoughts!
Loomio seems to be a project that is developing a software and creating a hosting business model of this software at the same time. Both are perfectly valid goals which should be supported.
But both goals are obviously conflicting: e.g. a common setup workflow (including packaging through the software distributions) is an important property for software. But obviously the hosting business suffers if self-hosting is as easy as "apt-get install loomio".

Thus I think it is of extreme importance for the longevity of this software project that the conflicting interests of a hosting business model and software development are fully understood by all involved individuals.

@richarddbartlett: your reply to Tobias comment seems to be unrelated. Maybe you misunderstood his wording?

Personally I have to admit that the combination of the "hidden" link to the source, the mixed community/software interests and the requirement of a CLA reminds me too much of other software projects like the "SourceForge Enterprise Edition" (formerly free software) and most groupware projects, that were started as free software but were overwhelmed by their business model later (just look out for their "community editions").
I would be surprised, but nevertheless very happy if loomio would prove to be an exception in this regard.
Good luck to everyone involved!

Thanks for your thoughtful comments @lars1.

Regarding the links to the source and license, we'll take that into consideration next time we overhaul the front page (sometime in the next few months).

I think your analysis of the conflict between hosting and installing is right on. Right now, loomio.org is hosted on heroku, and intimately tied to a bunch of third party services, many of which are nonfree. This has pragmatic benefits in the short term (i.e. all our sysadmin is outsourced), but is obviously not the ideal state for the project to be in. It's our ambition to move loomio.org off heroku, and host it in the same manner as any other instance, i.e. with a docker container. We've publicly committed to releasing this container format by the end of the year.

In the immediate term, it is looking fairly likely that the project will be supported by grant funding. Nothing is confirmed yet, but that funding would reduce the pressure for the hosting business to turn a profit. Also, because this funding is directly tied to social impact, it goes some way to resolving the conflict of interest between a hosting business model and an easily installable package.

At the end of the day, all of our strategic decisions are guided by the principle of maximising positive social impact. In practice, that means for instance that we are expressly not pursuing an 'Enterprise Edition'. If we did push in that direction, it's likely we'd find a huge revenue opportunity there, but the social impact would be severely constrained, so it is off the table. An easily installable software package that interoperates nicely with other instances is likely to have much greater social impact, so that's where our targets are set.

I appreciate you bringing these concerns to light Lars. I plan for the project to surprise you :)