Github ID: Get One (and Call for Feedback)

[Rob Underwood]

FINOS Community,

As I told the 11 FINOS Program Management Committees (PMCs) FINOS at our May 21 pan-PMC meeting, the foundation team is working on a number of inter-related projects to simplify both our collaboration infrastructure (currently Web Ex for online meetings; Google for mailing lists and program calendars; Atlasssian for JIRA ticketing and our 11 Confluence program wikis; Hubspot for our marketing/newsletter mailing lists and industry event/conference calendar; Github for repositories and as a base for our development infrastructure; Bitergia for our reporting) and our overall community participant, especially developer, on-boarding and experience.

One element of this simplification effort will be the use of Github IDs as a primary identify and authentication mechanism. Github IDs are the de facto standard for open source communities, large and small. To "do open source" nearly always means to also have a Github ID and profile (here's mine).

Ubiquitous use of Github IDs will simplify foundation reporting and streamline application access. Github IDs can be used for authentication with nearly any common app or tool that an open source community needs, including with Gitlab, another popular source repository service (and also, like Github, a FINOS member).

As such, we're asking everyone in the FINOS community to start getting ready for the coming day when all FINOS community participants will be required to have a Github ID. Three asks:

• Get a Github ID at https://github.com/join?source=finos (Target: July 15, 2019)
  
  
  
  
• If you take meeting minutes for a FINOS working group or project, please do your best to collect Github ids (aka "handles") from all participants (if they don't have one, remind then to get one), and include these IDs in the respective column:
  

  
  

  
  
• When you participate in a WebEx, please remember to introduce yourself on the chat with your name, organization, AND Github ID to help the minute taker

We're also keenly aware that Google, especially Google Groups, continues to remain an obstacle and source of friction for some FINOS community participants, especially at several large investment banks that block Google tools. A replacement to Google Groups that can be used by all participating organizations, including and especially our investment banking participants, is a high priority for the foundation as part of this on-going simplification. Standardizing more around Github IDs is an important pre-condition.

Finally, as I mentioned to the PMCs in several forums, part of this process is to improve our messaging to help attract new community participants, especially developers, and then provide a straight forward on-boarding path to our tools. We welcome your feedback. If you would like to share your or your team's thoughts regarding 1) our developer messaging or 2) community participant on-boarding to FINOS tools, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. We'd love to hear it.

Thanks,

Rob

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Rob Underwood | Director of Programs | FINOS

 +1 (917) 754-3900 |  rob.un...@finos.org | @brooklynrob | Github: @brooklynrob 

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