Pledge “support-okfn”
"I will set up a standing order of at least £5 a month to help the Open Knowledge Foundation keep developing and promoting open knowledge but only if 100 other people will do the same."
— Rufus Pollock, Director, Open Knowledge Foundation
Deadline to sign up by: 1st January 2010
21 people signed up, 79 more were needed
More details
For the past five years, the Open Knowledge Foundation has promoted the free disemmination of information - from sonnets to stats, genes to geodata. During that time, we have run projects that have allowed Shakespeare and Milton to enjoy a rebirth in the digital public domain (http://www.openshakespeare.org), begun the huge task of cataloging the public domain (http://www.publicdomainworks.net/), and made available core economic and historical material (http://www.openeconomics.net/).
Even more importantly we've developed tools like Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (http://www.ckan.net) and KnowledgeForge (http://knowledgeforge.net/), standards like the Open Knowledge Definition (http://opendefinition.org/), and run workshops and events, all for the benefit of the wider open knowledge community.
The Foundation has been and will always remain a not-for-profit organisation built on the work of passionate volunteers. But we also need financial support so that we invest in our infrastructure and staff.
With your help we can make our work go much, much further. Become a regular supporter so that we can continue running events like OKCon, developing sites like Open Shakespeare, building tools like CKAN and running projects like Open Data Commons.
Instructions on how to set up a regular donation are at http://www.okfn.org/support/
- give a percentage or more of the Canton Free TV project of $4000
- stay clean for ever!
- donate $10 every month for Chris L. to manage the FSP administration
- Help to stop bullying
See more pledges, and all about how PledgeBank works.
Things to do with this pledge
Current signatories (
= they've done it)
Rufus Pollock, the Pledge Creator, joined by:
- Becky Hogge
- John Bywater
- Martin Keegan
- Tim Hubbard
- Jordan Hatcher
- Jonathan Gray
- James Casbon
- Michael Holloway
- Jo Walsh
- Mike Linksvayer
- Cameron Neylon
- Non Scantlebury
- Andrew Lamb
- Graham Steel
- Steve and Katie Koch
- Mark Simpkins
- paula le dieu
- Martin K
- Nick Halliday
- Harry Metcalfe
- 1 person who did not want to give their name
Comments on this pledge
http://www.okfn.org/about/people lists more than half of the supporters at the time of writing. It also links to a domain squatter (ukcdr).
PS: sorry to see ukcdr domain has been taken over by squatters - we'll remove the hyperlink.
I think an elected board is a key step towards democratic leadership. The above page claims that OKFN is inspired by ASF, yet ASF has a democratically-controlled board (elected and accountable). OKFN doesn't. In fact, OKFN Board member is specifically missing from the "Roles" section of the Governance page. I've not seen OKFN's governing documents, but I expected the usual SMOF membership process from that description. Is it more open that that?
OKFN isn't a membership organisation, so how can we make an electorate?
OpenStreetmap's foundation membership is pay-to-join. Wikimedia's is based on activity level. ASF's is a social network - to become a member, you have to be recommended by one. OSGeo, of which I was a director for 3 years, was modelled on ASF, but with the membership expanding by a set amount on a vote of the existing membership each year. People vote for who they know of and respect through technical work, but this does mean the interests of the electorate become self-similar, and membership can become seen as exclusive, and this filters up to the Board.
The closest analogy to where OKFN is now is the Open Rights Group - it has paid supporters, Board positions are openly advertised but people are "appointed" to positions (by the existing Board? the advisory Board? I am not sure). This fundraising approach here on pledgebank is based on what ORG did to get their first 1000 supporters.
In OKFN's case, for the last few years the Board has been there to provide oversight of the corporate accounting information, and that's about it. All llanning and project work is done in public on the okfn-discuss list and on irc, by anyone who wants to make the effort.
I am not sure, in any case, that voting is an effective way to get to democracy.
The OKF is rather different from the Open Rights Group (ORG). ORG is intended to be, and acts much more, like a standard "core-funded" organization with the majority of the main work done by the paid staff (for policy and media work that is what is really needed).
At the OKF I think we aim to be rather different, much more like the ASF/OSGeo (or even Wikipedia) model (and that is what the governance document says). Up until now membership has not been that formalized because we were small enough that it could be equated directly with those people involved in projects on a day to day basis.
Perhaps now that we are seeking to expand somewhat we should formalize this and make membership more formally explicit.
OKFN could define its membership in many different ways, but having no membership is probably the worst possible choice. The drawbacks of the approaches of other groups aren't reasons not to even try.
Personally, I've made "glancing blows" on OKFN and its relatives, but never really got involved because of the time needed to try to winkle out how to help and the disincentive of having no formal voice (AFAICT). So far, other groups have seemed easier and more rewarding to help.
I think OKFN's aims are important, so it upsets me to see it taking what I think is a step in a wrong (ORG-like) direction with this pledge.
Voting is not sufficient to get to democracy, but it seems a necessary element.
This question seems to have been ignored: I expected the usual SMOF membership process from the description of the board on the OKFN website. Is it more open than that?