2025-05-21 Proposal for community development to extend support of Okapi

2025-05-21 Proposal for community development to extend support of Okapi

Date

May 21, 2025

Attendees 

  • @Craig McNally

  • @Jenn Colt

  • @Charlotte Whitt

  • @Ingolf Kuss

  • @Jeremy Huff

  • @Jason Root

  • @Julian Ladisch

  • @Maccabee Levine

  • @Marc Johnson

  • @Tod Olson

  • @Wayne Schneider

  • @Kevin Day

  • @Florian Gleixner

  • @Christopher Spalding

  • @Martin Scholz

  • Jakub

  • Joshg

Discussion items

Time

Item

Who

Notes

Time

Item

Who

Notes

1 min

Scribe

All

@Kevin Day is next, followed by @Jakub Skoczen

Reminder:  Please copy/paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

*

Extended community support of Okapi

All

  • Main doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-yi5xAjpEFz2XT0elp8Y11YmCGGC9uXi2jEbPB6GEcY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.8wd07w2x9o3m

  • Cost estimate doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15EPPkd0A1dtwixejsAVstUhag7jl1o0Gq9lRoAQNxfc/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.lrt8jvecymiy

  • Summary:

    • Goal is to extend Ramsons support to first quarter of 2026 and these documents are to provide how that would look.

    • This proposal is intended to get official endorsement by the community.

    • The plans is intended to be wrapped up and solidified by WolfCon in order to roll it our during WolfCon.

    • The TC has not yet approved the proposal.

    • The cost proposal provided is only a basic guideline and is expected to have changes following more discussions and on closer review.

    • This proposal does not recommend using any particular flower release for the community.

      • Instead, this proposal is keeping Ramsons available longer for those who choose to not yet ready to switch to Eueraka in production.

    • Migration is not part of the scope of this issue and this policy is intended for providing more time to plan and prepare the migration into Eureka.

    • One major aspect of this policy is to ensure the availability of CSPs for production environments on Ramsons for the suggested extended period.

    • We aspire to enhance our ability to operate with any commercial interest rather than a single particular commercial interest.

  • Questons:

    • What will be the impact of this policy on the community?

 

Notes

 

  • @Maccabee Levine Are there any more expected changes to the proposal?

    • The Trillium release may reduce the need for how long the timeline is to be extended.

  • @Jeremy Huff The costs are more flexible that those explicitly outlined in the proposal.

    • Do not expect Trilliums release date to be pushed out longer.

    • Trillium may be extend or may not but we should consider costs and plans based on the official release schedule.

  • @Marc Johnson We should stick to the official release schedule regardless of the community’s ability to stick to the schedule.

    • Trillium may be GA before the end of 2025.

    • The Early Adopters do not feel that there is sufficient production support for Euerka until at least early 2026.

    • Nov 2025 to March 2026 does not cover the time period being considered.

    • Support for Sunflower and Okapi may push this schedule.

  • @Jeremy Huff's understanding is that Trillium GA ends support for Ramsons.

    • The Sunflower release should not push this schedule.

    • TAMU is interested in using Trillium with Eureka.

  • @Marc Johnson Does this proposal suggest skipping Sunflower for people staying with Ramsons until they are ready for Eureka?

  • @Jeremy Huff This proposal is not making any specific recommendations on this.

  • @Charlotte Whitt No libraries have been moved into production with Eureka yet. We need to buy extra time.

  • @Craig McNally The Library of Congress has Eureka and Gallileo will be going live soon.

  • @Charlotte Whitt is talking about libraries already using OKAPI that need to upgrade rather than new libraries starting on Eureka (that were never on OKAPI).

  • @Marc Johnson We need to focus on the impact..

    • Is migration part of this scope?

  • @Jeremy Huff answers that migration is not part of the scope.

    • Individuals are not confident going with Eureka until early 2026 and by that time Ramsons will be out of support.

    • We need to include guidance on what community members should do.

  • @Julian Ladisch Points out that another option might be to add Okapi support to the Sunflower release (see chat conversation).

    • There are even more options, such as running Ramsons without any CSP support.

  • @Jeremy Huff Security is a must. The costs could potentially be reduced if focused solely on CSP support.

    • TAMU assumed OKAPI Sunflower CSP would be harder than OKAPI Ramsons CSP.

  • @Ingolf Kuss There are no plans for OKAPI Sunflower CSP support.

    • Supporting Okapi Sunflower on Bugfest would be more expensive.

  • @Jenn Colt Are we asking the community for what? Money?

    • The TC is not involved in the release process (nor is the PC).

    • Aside from CSP, most of this is outside of governance.

  • @Jeremy Huff “In kind contributions” would help (Community Driven Development).

    • This working group should come out of this with an effective model regardless of the state of Ramsons.

    • Top level direction and organization is needed.

    • We should be a self-sustaining community that is not dependent on commercial interests in order to stay afloat.

  • @Jenn Colt Not being dependent only commercial interests is a big statement and this is a big ask.

    • Making decisions on “extenting Ramsons” or “getting OKAPI for Sunflower” kinds of decisions are difficult for the community to make.

    • This is not about rejecting commercial interests and is instead about diversifying our interests.

  • @Jeremy Huff Clarifies that he is not talking about any particular commercial interests rather than being dependent on any commercial interests at all.

  • @Jeremy Huff , @Maccabee Levine , and @Marc Johnson agree with diversifying our interests.

  • @Marc Johnson also notes that this diversification of interests is separate from the proposal.

    • Which are we talking about Today?

  • @Jeremy Huff responds that these proposal are presenting an opportunity for the community (as a group) to take charge and to contribute.

    • Using community funds will make this more feasable and more likely to succeed.

  • @Marc Johnson There is a “Chicken and Egg” problem.

    • Whether we want to or not, it is likely going to take volunteers, even with the money.

    • The TC shouldn’t take part in the financial decisions and such decisions are part of another councils decision making.

    • We should instead consider how we are deciding for official support and having an explicit stance.

  • @Jeremy Huff The Ramsons CSP support would be easier for TAMU.

    • TAMU expects to go live on Eureka with Trillium.

  • @Jenn Colt This might be confusing for the rest of the community.

    • The governence piece requires both options to be evaluated.

  • @Craig McNally Doesn’t understand what decision we are trying to make.

    • The next step is to find volunteers. Is this correct?

  • @Jenn Colt There is no specific goal.

    • We are surfacing questions, but there is no voting goal.

  • @Craig McNally thinks that we are not yet at a point to vote on this. We need more information.

    • Such as “Is this even feasable?”.

  • @Marc Johnson This is our “chicken and the egg” problem.

    • We need to both endorse this proposal and we need to know if we have volunteers.

  • @Jeremy Huff The purpose of this proposal is specifically to get the community’s endorsements.

    • It is possible that this proposal could be accepted and then later discover that this plan is not feassable.

  • @Marc Johnson So then the question is if we endorse this?

    • For the supporting this working group and giving them the go ahead, then yes.

  • @Jenn Colt This proposal states intend to extend Ramsons rather than stating form a working group.

  • @Marc Johnson Why don’t we do smaller steps and designate the working group.

    • After that, the working group can bring in a proposal for extending support of Ramsons.

    • We should get a lazy consensus on this ASAP.

    • After that, there may be volunteers.

    • We can vote Today on endorsement.

    • Then later we can discuss extending (or not) Ramsons

    • Going GA with Sunflower locks us in with the release cycle, affecting Ramsons. (Going Sunflower GA with Eureka.)

  • @Jenn Colt What happens if some decide to go Sunflower with OKAPI? Is this a failure?

  • @Jeremy Huff It is a compromised victory rather than a failure.

    • Consolidating our efforts will make this easier to accomplish.

  • @Marc Johnson Can we make a mini-decisions regarding the working group?

  • @Jenn Colt There are no alternative proposals.

  • @Marc Johnson remarks that a significant number of voting TC members will be changing by the by the end of WolfCon.

-

Zoom Chat



Jenn Colt 10:02 AM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-yi5xAjpEFz2XT0elp8Y11YmCGGC9uXi2jEbPB6GEcY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.8wd07w2x9o3m

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:08 AM
+ 100 Jeremy Huff

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:09 AM
Trillium GA is currently planned for 11/10/2025

Jenn Colt  to  Everyone 10:12 AM
They aren’t trying to get sunflower on okapi

Jason Root  to  Everyone 10:14 AM
Correct @Jenn Colt  - it so happens right now at least, Sunflower versions of FOLIO modules do work in an Okapi platform environment.

I don’t believe this proposal is advocating one way or the other on going to a particular platform, or to hold off on going to a particular platform.

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:18 AM
Next Go/No go meeting for Sunflower will be on 5/23/2025

Julian Ladisch  to  Everyone 10:21 AM
One proposal is to extend Ramsons support period.
A different proposal is to run Sunflower modules in an Okapi environment - core platform team has released Sunflower versions of most Okapi-specific modules (Okapi, mod-login, ...) to make this happen. To make this a viable solution some Sunflower-Okapi bugfest environment needs to be set up.

Charlotte Whitt 10:23 AM
Maybe the community could buy help from EBSCO to set up this bugfest environment

Wayne Schneider  to  Everyone 10:24 AM
Functional support for Ramsons should extend through the Trillium release date of Nov 10, right?

Florian Gleixner  to  Everyone 10:26 AM
The problem are also that release dates sometimes get delayed. We only support 2 releases, but when one release is delayed and the next is in time, then the support period for this release is way less then one year. Probably we should support 2 releases but at least one year for each release?

Julian Ladisch 10:30 AM
The end of support date should be tied to the end of Spring support as the majority of modules are Spring based. This will result in about 12 months of support ending either on June 30 or December 31.

Florian Gleixner 10:31 AM
When a release is delayed as much as ramsons, then we should think about changing the OST for this release when the decision to delay the release is made.

Wayne Schneider  to  Everyone 10:28 AM
A work effort for performance testing and automated regression testing would likely be required for Sunflower on Okapi as well, right?

Jason Root  to  Everyone 10:29 AM
Agreed Wayne

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:37 AM
This is also about being responsible. We should all align around:  No FOLIO libraries left behind
Right now only EBSCO claim that they can spin up Eureka as environment where they can host libraries in production
Non EBSCO institutions are not yet at that state

Jenn Colt  to  Everyone 10:43 AM
Who is ‘us’?

Marc Johnson  to  Everyone 10:47 AM
Governance alone cannot achieve this because (apart from the CC funding) it has no executive capabilities

Wayne Schneider  to  Everyone 10:47 AM
Another tradeoff that different institutions might value differently is functional -- the cost of an upgrade vs. the cost of missing functionality that is included in the Sunflower release.

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:48 AM
No you recollect correct Craig

Charlotte Whitt  to  Everyone 10:48 AM
The working group will be extended by CC, TC, PC members

Marc Johnson  to  Everyone 10:56 AM
I think we should endorse many flowers blooming in this regard and to crack on with the working group

Tod Olson  to  Everyone 11:00 AM
I need to drop, thank you all.

Julian Ladisch  to  Everyone 11:00 AM
I need to run, thanks!

Jenn Colt 11:01 AM
eek