[CSL board] mvhub.com lowellevents.info

[Dan MacNeil]

Here's an item for Wednesday's executive committee meeting...

We're been applying for grants to make mvhub.com skinnable and 
plugable. When we're done, people could use mvhub software with 
different colors and logos or (more important) share the database 
with us. When the "please update your listing" email goes out, it 
would be to update a bunch of directories.

We don't have to be greedy about our share of poverty and 
ignorance. More selfishily We have a better chance of getting 
funding for our software and data [***] if it is used around the 
country by 100s of groups. There are a lots of crappy 
directories. The directory owners cling to them because the 
organization gets funding or recognition. Improving these 
directories is a better strategy than crushing them.

A week or so ago, I met w/ Miran Fernandez, CIO of city of 
Lowell. He's working on something like mvhub.com implemented in 
MS sharepoint.  He's a little uneasy about anything not 
controlled by the city's IT dept and an official city thing with 
advertising.

We've agreed to start work on sharing a back-end. We're not sure 
if it will be via SQL or  CSV dumps or web services, or smoke 
signals.

We also know that before we go live, we need a memo of 
understanding.

So far so, good, the above should not be a big surprise to anyone 
on the board. The new twist is combining lowellevents.info and 
calendar.mvhub.com

Miran is proposing that we fold http:/calendar.mvhub.com into a 
community calendar at http://lowellevents.info

To contribute to Wednesday's discussion you should probably look 
at both calendars.

The city would host the calendar and we (CSL) would be 
responsible for reviewing / approving events. We'd not get paid 
for this, but we're not getting paid (much) to do this now.

The calendar needs spam and wack-job filtering, but it would be 
awkward for the city to be responsible for moderating political 
announcements.

PROS FOR CSL

We'd not have to maintain calendar software. This isn't huge as 
we're maintaining calendars for other groups anyway.

We'd get some good will from Miran and the city.

CONS FOR CSL

We'd lose some mindshare/credit.

We'd lose opportunity for advertising revenue (right now a 
$200/year opportunity)

We'd be supporting proprietary software.

PRO FOR CITY

More mindshare / glory for IT dept

Not much more work.

PRO FOR COMMMUNITY

One stop shopping for calendar needs.

CON FOR COMMUNITY

A little transition / redirect hassle


[***] The copyright for most of the software is held by LTC. It 
is however licensed under the GPL, which means as long as we 
contribute our changes back, we can use it freely.  The data is 
also copyright LTC, but like the phone book, a collection of 
facts is not copyright-able.  The domain name is held by LTC, and 
that is absolutely theirs.

LTC paid us $2,000 for software and data maintenance, 
08-2007/08-2008

Relations with LTC are great these days.