Species-ID:Ownership and sponsors
THIS IS AN UNAPPROVED DRAFT!
Species-ID is is community-owned project. This means:
- Any data like text and media files of this project are available for public download, similar to how Wikipedia is downloadable. NOTE: Download Link here - NOT YET IMPLEMENTED
- The complete server (a virtual machine, based entirely on Open Source software) as well as all registration data are accessible by a consortium of service sponsors willing to guarantee the service (see below).
In line with the open source and open content spirit, no single organisation can decide to discontinue the service. Even if all service sponsors should decide to terminate the service, a third party could restart the service based on the public backup copies.
The trust model implies one limitation: all activity on this site must be public. The project may enforce a limited number of write-protections to certain content, but cannot read protect "confidential" content. Furthermore, while copyright remains with the creators, all content must be licensed under a Creative Commons license (see Copyrights).
The following project organisations use one or more wikis and form a consortium that guarantees the actual operation of several biodiversity-related services (the "BiowikiFarm"):
- Key to Nature
- MORE to come
The goal of the service sponsorship is to support a continuous long term operation of the sercive. Each service sponsor keeps a backup copy of the entire setup (currently virtual machine). Furthermore, each service sponsor has all necessary security information (virtual machine backup access, root access for extended backup, domain name management access). All actions resulting in a change of service or the inclusion of further sponsors must be discussed in advance and agreed, if necessary by majority rule. The technical means of service provision (e. g., backup, fall-over service, or some form of shared and replicated service) will be decided by the sponsors.
Sponsor organisations listed above express their interest in the project and their willingness to dedicate specific resources to keep the operation running for several years. A sponsor organisation may withdraw its commitment of service sponsorship after giving notice one year ahead of the actual withdrawal.
Sponsor organisations may limit their support, for example as in "up to one server with 8 cores and 8 GB RAM, administration time not exceeding 5 days per year". Presently, the BiowikiFarm requires a single virtual Linux machine. The precise configuration at a given time will be listed under "Service configuration".
There are at the moment two or three sponsor institutions BGBM, JKI SNSB ??? which mirror the services and establish long-term infrastructure beside the aims of the projects ***.
Details of governance and conflict resolution in the service sponsorship are defined in the Service Sponsorship Charter
See also the project Charter.
