OW2: Milestones and Objectives, February 2007

["Cedric Thomas" <cedric.thomas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

OW2 is now one month old and, on behalf of the Management Office, I have
drawn up a short progress report. If we should decide that this report is
to be produced on a monthly basis, the Management Office will use it to
inform the community of the previous month?s achievements and the
priorities set for the following month.

The items on our agenda today:

1°) Introduction to the Management Office
2°) January report
3°) Timeline for the next months
4°) Membership development
5°) Business practices
6°) Registration process (reminder)
7°) February priorities
8°) Help needed

1°) Introduction to the Management Office
The Management Office is the team responsible for managing the
Consortium?s day-to-day operations.
Who is in the MO? The key positions:  Webmaster: Xavier Moghrabi, INRIA;
CTO: Jacques Cayuela, Bull;  Activities Coordination: Julie Marguerite,
INRIA; Event Coordination: Catherine Nuel, INRIA; Ecosystem Development:
Jean-Pierre Laisné, Bull; CEO: Cedric Thomas.

Up-coming developments: Julie Marguerite will move from INRIA to THALES
on March 1st,; she will remain a member of the Management Office. Xavier
Moghrabi will be leaving INRIA in a few months time and is to transfer
his extensive knowledge to a new Webmaster at Engineering. The MarCom
position is vacant and needs to be filled.

2°) January report
OW2 is currently in the start-up phase which requires moving on from
planning the new organization (2006) to actually implementing the new
consortium (2007). For this reason, January was  a rather strange month
as many of us were still in Object Web mode and not yet in OW2 mode. I
suppose this is to be expected; it takes time to take on board the next
phase and to start becoming involved in the new organization.

January highlights include:
- Solutions Linux trade show and ObjectWeb conference: the consortium was
present through the ObjectWeb village with EBMWebsourcing, Edifixio,
Engineering, Sogeti and THALES; communication focused on the transition
toward OW2; on the conference side, the technical presentations were well
attended and the question session after the OW2 presentation demonstrated
attendees? interest in the new consortium.
- Hosting: the Technology Council defined the target architecture and
received and started evaluating four proposals. The annual budget is
between ?50K and 100K with guaranteed bandwidth making up most of the
cost.
- Membership: finalized the implementation of an online registration
process mandatory for all membership applications.
- Membership Agreement: finalized and now part of the online registration
process (http://aboutus.ow2.org/doc/OW2C-MemberAgreement.pdf).
- New Members: 80 individual members; to date, four Strategic Members
(Thales, Bull, INRIA, CVIC-SE) and four Corporate Members (Charles
University, Eteration, Experlog, European Dynamics, Funambol).
- Website: secured ownership of the OW2.ORG domain name and developed
specific OW2 pages (site map is still provisional).
- Graphic designer: received proposal for new logo and web page templates
(to be evaluated by EC).
- European Projects: OW2 replaced ObjectWeb as NESSI Board Member;
participated in the NESSI Steering Committee and worked on defining the
ONESSI Initiative.
- Consortium Overview: there is now a 30-slide presentation of the OW2
Consortium essentials (http://aboutus.ow2.org/press.html)

3°) Timeline for the next few months:
- Recruitment of members campaign = January until end March
- Deadline for "Founding Member" status = March 18
- Notice of General Assembly = April 1
- Registration of Candidates = April 1 to 10
- Online Campaign = April 10 to 20
- Online vote = April 21 to 28
- Results = April 30
- Quarterly Meeting = May 3 and 4 (Paris or Brussels)
  - Board Meeting = May 3
  - Councils? Meetings = May 3
  - General Assembly = May 4
  - Presentations of New Activities = May 4

BTW, as a consequence, this sets our Communication Timeline (which we
need to discuss):
- Case studies and testimonials = February, March
- Analyst briefings = April
- OW2 Launch at Java One = May 8-11 (i.e. first significant event after
the General Assembly).

4°) Membership development
The online registration process is up and ready. As we still have an
issue with our address in Brussels, we may need to ask members to send
their Membership Agreements to an another address to speed up membership
processing.
Deadline for "Founding Member" status is March 18, the date by which we
should have sined most of our 2007 members.

5°) Best business practices
The Solutions Linux trade show was the opportunity to have broad-ranging
discussions with members who visited the ObjectWeb village. Some of the
most critical discussions revolved around fairness in business
relationships between large and small companies. This is obviously
critical for small, innovative companies if they are to grow within the
framework of OW2. It is now well established that one of OW2?s objectives
is to help create a business ecosystem for its members. Here, as an
organization, we are venturing onto unchartered territory. There will be
a learning process. Members must learn to work together in their business
projects to develop a sustainable business ecosystem in the same way as
they work collectively within technology projects to develop a consistent
middleware code base. Building the business ecosystem is one of the most
exciting challenges of OW2. It will not happen overnight: successes will
come along with their load of dissatisfaction and inappropriate behavior.
Part of the answer to address this new challenge will be to publish a
Code of Good Conduct on business practices. The Ecosystem Council will
have to work on this and all members who shared these values are welcome
to participate in this effort.

6°) Registration process (reminder)
  a) Former ObjectWeb members:
Former ObjectWeb members may transfer their information to OW2 by login
in at: http://myow2.objectweb.org/viewProfile.php. From there, you can
validate or update the information we already have on yourself or your
organization.
  b) New members:
New members must complete the Online Registration process at
http://joining.objectweb.org/registration.html

7°) February priorities
Our top priorities for February include:
- Membership development and invoicing
- Web site and logo re-design
- Hosting provider selection
- Global MO operations
- Participant Agreement
- Councils? Charters
- Cases studies

8°) Help needed
There is only so much the Management Office can do in this period of fast
change. We need help from the community with the following tasks:
- Validating the Participant Agreement (legal work)
- Helping with logo and graphic design
- Developing Councils? charters
- Writing Case Studies
- Updating press lists

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly at cedric.thomas AT
objectweb.org. Your help will be most appreciated.

That?s all for now.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Kind Regards,

   Cedric

Cedric Thomas
CEO, OW2 Consortium   cedric.thomas at objectweb.org
C: +33 611 430 431           D: +33 140 301 303
www.ow2.org           Leading Open-Source Middleware