Google Doc for drafting a report

What do we mean when we say "looking at the impact on the Product Council from the re-architecting proposal or vision that was presented by Vince at WOLFCon 2023."

What is the state of the proposed path to Apps, Platform, Auth/Security...

Vince proposal seeks to address the "monolithic" problems of FOLIO to formally define Apps, Platform, Auth/Security...

Vince makes the problem statement: "Folio is stuck in a mode of monolithic releases which are ever increasing in size"

Problems from the PC perspective (draft suggestions only):

Hard for PC to fulfil it's responsibilities in regards the 'product' where we lack a definition of what the "product" is
- Includes the time necessary for App / Module evaluation issue as well as the issue that this has not proved particularly effective so far
  - e.g. Translation app "approved" but not part of product - functionality was desirable but implementation was not accepted by
  - OA app approved but failed TC evaluation
  - Lists app not approved by PC but already going through TC evaluation
Overhead of a "Flower release" - on the product and the wider community (testing)
Ever growing "product" as it's hard to rule out functionality that is useful to at least one library
Overhead for hosting institutions and service providers in managing and upgrading Folio installations

RFC for Tech Council Review

Should this be part of the product? Current options are Yes or No. Does this give us more options? Yes - core, No - this should never get close to FOLIO, Yes - extended, etc...

Problem statements: What are challenges we currently see with the Product? What impact will these changes have on these challenges? 5-10 of these?

Releases
- Large overhead of a Flower release
  - Product owners and development teams
  - Community testing (bug fest)
- Balance between stability vs new functionality
- Deadlines for release cause bottlenecks especially in relation to new modules
- Overhead for hosting institutions and service providers in managing and upgrading Folio installations
Product functionality
- Ever growing "product" as it's hard to rule out functionality that is useful to at least one library
- Struggle to have a definition of the 'product' that the "Product Council" is responsible for
  - Determining what should be included in an application's functionality vs extended
  - Determining what is part of a "platform" - FOLIO LSP, ERM, etc... vs. Extended
Development processes
- Difficulty of getting a "Folio" development environment setup
- Ease with which a new development team can contribute to the system
  - Impacts on our ability to expand as a community
Functionality prioritisation and definition
- Difficulty of recruiting people to join SIGs and POs and lack of clarity as to how these roles contribute to actual functionality that is developed (i.e. a SIG can influence but not decide, a PO without development resource cannot make things happen etc.)
- Difficulty for PC of managing a roadmap that only reflects what the PC is told is happening, not what the PC would like to happen

How will the proposals help with these issues?

Stakeholders

FSE team responsible for flower releases
Self hosting institutions (e.g. TAMU)
Index data hosting team
Service provider marketing teams
Institutions using FOLIO LSP
Institutions looking at FOLIO LSP as a possible solution...

Questions

Would support windows be defined at Application level rather than Platform (or 'release') level?
- And what does "supported" mean anyway / LTS discussion
- The new proposed model brings new focus to this question
How will versioning of platforms, applications and modules interact and if there is a need to patch a module, how will the patched version get into the application and ultimately the platform (i.e. what is the equivalent of the CSP?)
Who would decide what was in the "functionality" vs "extended" tier for a platform?
Which platform(s) would the PC be involved in?
- If there was an "App Store" what governance would be necessary (probably a very long term question)
Is offering all the modules in the "Extended" tier a requirement of saying you support a platform as a service provider? Or is this not relevant as you could simply have a different platform definition
What is the need for the "Flower" release - are their product needs to have named releases?
- Institution to institution conversations
- Market conversations / marketing purposes
- What can we learn from Apple naming conventions?
  - Folio Core → OS?
  - Platform Functionality tier → bundled apps (tend to be updated with OS?)
  - Platform Extended tier → user installed apps?
Assuming we answer most or all of the above, what do prioritization and roadmap process(es) look like?
SIGs - will they become App based?
POs - will they become App based?
Does the proposal offer the opportunity of moving away from a monolithic frontend, and if so could this open up the ability for institutions to draw on several different options for hosting apps - e.g. have apps hosted by service provider, then self-host a couple of additional apps that they wish to run or have developed locally

What stage are we at?

General discussion of how to move forward?

This proposal is the way to move forward? RFC could be rejected or accepted?

Not agreement at TC as to how to best move forward.

What is PC role in process?

What is the right way to approach this large architectural question?

Releases are big large process to put releases together.

- Product side - take a look at how we do releases going forward.

Deliverables:

- List of questions - some may come from TC, some from PC, some from other channels

What is PCs role(s) in a project to implement this
Is there code already written as if this is in place?
Are we reacting to something already in motion, or are we recommending a path forward?

- Present to PC prior to Tri-Council (by October 5)

To Do:

Jesse - gather recordings and slide decks - some may need to be edited from a longer multi-session video.

Jesse - Set up meetings - weekly at least until October same time slot 8:30 Eastern - Monday

- Get FOLIO Zoom link

Add to Questions and Problem Statements above

Recommendations for our group: Read back-and-forth in TC Slack: https://folio-project.slack.com/archives/CAQ7L02PP/p1694016217856909

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