Draft thinking on governance models that Kuali Rice and other Venture Partners might enter into. The first table contains existing and proposed Kuali Rice models, including a Venture Partner Model. The second table highlights 3 possible variations on the Venture Partner Models.
Kuali Rice Investment / Governance Models
Model |
Contribution |
Participation |
Benefit |
Barriers |
Full Investing Partner – Higher Education Institutions, Kuali Commercial Affliates, other Kuali Projects |
Annual dues based on size of institution, 1 FTE for 2 years, or $100K per year in lieu of FTE |
1 seat on Rice Board, 1 seat on ARC, 1 seat on TRC, full voting rights |
Strongest opportunity to influence direction, guide board, guide roadmap, participate in sub-committees |
Bar too high for many interested institutions. |
Contributing Partner – -Other Higher Education Institutions or Consortiums, Kuali Projects, Kuali Commercial Affliates, Grant Sponsors, etc. |
Annual dues based on size of institution, and/or .5FTE contribution for specified period of time |
1 seat on quarterly advisory board, review board meeting notes, input to proposed changes to charter, Strategic plans and roadmaps (Join a board meeting on quarterly basis? Separate conference call?) |
Ability to influence direction via quarterly meetings that advise the board. |
Even with shorter durations still hard to get firm in-kind contributions. |
Venture Partner / Targeted Development - Other Higher Education Institutions or Consortiums. Other Open Source Vendors, etc. |
As general rule of thumb, at least twice the full investing partner level. |
Rice Board and Venture Partner jointly create Venture Charter outlining expectations on development, governance and ongoing support. |
Rice able to advance more strategically. Venture partner able to take advantage of Rice development infrastructure, shared services. Both interests able to speed development velocity. |
Mismatch in governance / decision making processes. Community development, versus open source meritocracy, etc. |
Venture Partner Models
Model |
Contribution |
Participation |
Benefit |
Barriers |
Venture becomes part of core Rice - |
Venture partner contributes existing code to become part of core, and/or helps develop core Rice code. |
Venture Partner contributes to initial design and development. Venture Partner gets voting rights on Rice Board and Roadmap Committees proportional to full investment partner contributions. |
Venture Partner able to have strong influence on direction of product. |
Venture partner migration of current client base could be difficult. |
Venture becomes close integration and collaborative support |
Venture partner and Kuali Rice agree to enhance code bases separately for better integration capabilities. |
Venture Partner and Kuali Rice build common vision and reference architectures. |
Venture Partner and Kuali Rice enhance value proposition of individual products with anticipated increased adoptions of comprehensive solution set. |
Synchronizing roadmaps and timelines may be difficult. |
Venture becomes new self sustaining product |
Venture partner and Rice team jointly merge existing code and develop new common code base with eventual goal of product becoming its own self sustaining support model. |
Venture Partner and Rice team initially create new code branch and dedicate development resources. New venture is created as a new Kuali Project (and/or under the umbrella of the Venture Partner) to drive investment and adoption. New support channels are created. |
Allow either Venture Partner or Kuali Rice to divest their code in order to concentrate on other core functionalities. |
May still need institutional backing especially in early years until critical mass of investment and support reached. |