How to find more project members?

[Thomas Sødring]

On 02/07/2017 03:28 PM, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> How can we find the right people to help us develop Nikita?  Where are
> the free software proponents interested in NOARK or archiving in general
> located?
A question I have asked myself for many years :) I spent considerable
effort trying to build up a community. Things like establishing
arkivlab.no, keeping minimal institutional identification so that people
would feel they were working towards a common good.  The package names
are neutral no.arkivlab.hioa.*. I tried to establish the project as a
shared IT component for municipalities. Nikita stood for Norsk
Interkommunal IT Arkitkektur, to try and push it for the municipalities
through the inter municipality archives (IKA). I hosted all my code on
the KDRS github page to help push a community. I developed programming
courses for the archive community.

Unfortunately, none of it worked! There is little to no interest in
helping this project. I have tried to work with people that speak fondly
of open source but once value is visible in the "product", they close
it. In the end I realised how many hours that were wasted trying
establish a community, and decided to do it myself!  I do not think we
will find any active help within the archive community.

A few of the years I've been doing this I've had a 100% teaching load,
so the project is carried forward on a best effort basis. That's why it
has taken so long. As far as I am concerned this is a pure R&D project.
However, if somebody want to commercialise it, good luck to them! But
no-one can lock this core down! Once it is in place, we will use it for
teaching purposes and it will give our students a deep insight into the
digital side of their profession.  The block-chain demo I was talking
about is another example of R&D. It was mentioned at the meeting last
week that some people had spoken to vendors about a block-chain test
project. But straight away, costs were an prohibitive issue! With an
open source core, people can take it, test it, play with it. Integrate
it with block-chain or whatever they want.

People from EDB group tried to start the development of an open source
Noark 5 core via Dataforeningen a few years ago but nothing came of it.
EDB merged with Ergo and became Evry and suddenly they had 2 Noark
systems so I guess the interest died there. I went to FAD (fornying,
administrasjons department or something like that) and there had been an
application to get money for one but it had been rejected. They liked
the idea and "morally" supported the project!

I think easiest way to build a community for this variant of a Noark
core is to find Java heads. There are lectures in SOA and springsource
at UiO, so there might some relevant people there.  Simula and HiOA are
in talks about establishing a "centre for digitalisation" for the public
sector. I'd be happy to see nikita there and that might be a possible
avenue to explore. Uninett and USIT might have people that are
interested, but they have enough with their own projects.

However, in some ways there is not really that much left to do and maybe
it will be easier to attract a community once the "product" exists and
is approved by the National Archive. Even though it's getting more
concrete,  it's still a slightly diffuse concept that can be difficult
to grasp. We're not that far off of being able to apply for approval for
the lower levels of functionality. I was told by some consultants that
we could have gotten the 2011 version of dots approved. But I would
never put forward something that weak!

I personally think the easiest way is to hit a JUG. Find a meeting and
present and see if something comes out of it.

But your interest in the project Petter has really helped drive it
forward. For a long time now it has just been me. Just having someone to
discuss, someone to question what's happening gives the project more
meaning. You have highlighted so many issues that I probably would have
easily missed.

> Is it an idea to write about this project in relevant journals?  What
> are relevant journals?  Arkivmagasinet[1] and Tidsskriftet Arkiv[2]come
> to mind.  I do not read any of them.  Are there others?
There are others, but they are not relevant at the moment. There's
definitely little understanding of open source and the editors of the
relevant archival publications will be weary of giving us what they will
deem as free advertisement space. Some vendors have referred to the
project as competition, and I think that label has stuck! But I could
for example publish information about the nikita-core and block chain
and that will probably be OK as I'm not trying to push the nikita-core.
>
> Are there already articles written about Nikita published somewhere?  It
> would be nice if we maintained a list.
>
> I am not up to the task of writing these articles myself.  Any of you
> feel capable?
>
>  [1] <URL: http://www.arkivverket.no/arkivverket/Arkivverket/Om-oss/Publikasjoner/Arkivmagasinet >
>  [2] <URL: https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/arkiv >
>

I think my boss would like to see publications. I'm really on overtime
with this project (8 years) and it has to deliver some tangible academic
return on investment. There is a digital library journal that publish
articles on work like this. It's a level 1 publication and hopefully, I
will submit something there. But I will also write something with
someone if anyone has any other channels that are worth pursuing.

 - Tom