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Alexandre
Jan 19, 2022, 7:35:46 AM1/19/22
to AtoM Users
To the AtoM Team,
I work for a company who found an interest in the AtoM Archive solution and they have asked me to assess its viability for their project. On technical parts, and after making an installation of AtoM, everything seems to be working fine (even though I used PHP 7.4 for it, but the base is empty, this might be different once it is populated).
Nevertheless, you have a fine working solution. I didn't have too much problems installing it myself a LXC Debian 11. So thank you for your work and documentation.
However, we now want to know what the development process of AtoM will be, as time goes by, so we have a few questions to ask. I'm asking them here personally because I haven't been able to find any answers on my own, but maybe there are already some on your website. If so, I'll be happy to be redirected there.
- Since the AtoM project wishes to move away from Symfony 1.X, what will be the future framework ?
- Are there new core functional modules being designed for future versions ?
- What kind of upgrade process/procedure is put in place for core and non-core modules ?
- How is (IT)security managed within the project ?
- With Artefactual going through its own changes, what will that impact the business model for the AtoM project ?
Thank you in advance for reading through that message and, possibly, answering my questions. I also wish you all a Happy New Year and a great week!
My regards,
AJ
Dan Gillean
Jan 19, 2022, 10:46:25 AM1/19/22
to ICA-AtoM Users
Hi Alexandre,
Welcome to the AtoM community!
You've asked some big questions, some of which do not yet have firm answers. Nonetheless I will do my best to answer them with the information we currently have.
For now, the real answer to all of these questions will be "it depends" - on funding, on the future of AtoM's governance, research and development, and many other factors. What follows below are my own current opinions on your questions, and not necessarily those of Artefactual, the AtoM Foundation, or the broader AtoM community.
Since the AtoM project wishes to move away from Symfony 1.X, what will be the future framework ?
Technology selections have not yet been made - currently there is no concrete funding for this level of undertaking. In the meantime, Artefactual continues to conduct internal research and development experiments on our own, and through our collaboration with the AtoM Foundation (formed to help guide the development and ongoing maintenance of a next-generation version of AtoM) we are focusing first on governance, design principles, and priorities set by the broader user community. See:
Internally, I can tell you that Artefactual's goal is to move away from a monolithic design to something much more modular and easy to maintain. We have experimented with GoLang, event driven systems, websockets, and architectural design patterns involving Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS), Domain-Driven Design (DDD), event sourcing and service choreography, and more. We feel these technologies and design patterns have great potential to provide value to archival users, but ultimately any final implementation will be informed by the Design Principles defined by the AtoM Foundation Roadmap Committee.
Are there new core functional modules being designed for future versions ?
This will depend on how the Foundation, its members, and the broader user community define and prioritize value. AtoM's core functionality will remain associated with archival arrangement, description, and access, but these are broad areas of focus that might obviously include a lot of additional functionality. As a company, our goal is to be the best partner to those who care for cultural memory, and to deliver real value to our users. If in doing so we find that new modules or new applications are the best way for us to meet these objectives, then we will pursue these approaches.
With a more modular design, it's also possible that future new features will be supported in modules not technically called "AtoM" per se - for example, it may make sense to develop a separate, lightweight reporting module that integrates with other core modules, rather than try to incorporate complex reporting directly into something like a description module. Similarly, many archival users might want physical storage management from an archival management system (and AtoM's current physical storage solution is fairly basic), but given that this alone can be a complex area of the domain, it may be a separate integrated module/application called something else, rather than a core part of a monolithic replacement. It depends ;)
What kind of upgrade process/procedure is put in place for core and non-core modules ?
Again, this will likely depend on funding and governance. Realistically, given Artefactual's business model and available funding in the archival domain, it's unlikely any single body will provide the funding necessary to rewrite the project from scratch - there may never be a clear line between AtoM2 and AtoM3 as we once thought. This means we are considering something more incremental, inspired by the Strangler Fig Application pattern described by Martin Fowler in the following article:
One of our core considerations, which the Foundation shares, is that there is a clear upgrade/migration path from AtoM 2.x to any future system. The fact that the AtoM project has always aimed to be standards-based will be an asset in planning for this.
How is (IT)security managed within the project ?
We have a security reporting procedure defined in the AtoM project here:
As we become aware of issues, we patch them and put out security releases.
In 2022 Artefactual is also increasing its focus on security-informed development and maintenance. As per this November 2021 posting on our website, we have also recently hired a security-focused developer who will be helping us to prioritize security in all our processes going forward.
With Artefactual going through its own changes, what will that impact the business model for the AtoM project ?
I can tell you this much: The AtoM project, and/or whatever succeeds it, will remain open source.
We will continue to try to work out the governance and maintenance of AtoM long-term via the AtoM Foundation, so that more developers and companies can participate in AtoM's development and maintenance, and more community members and organizations have a say in what the principles and priorities of the open source project should be. This is an evolving process. You might find these slides, presented at a conference around the time the AtoM Foundation was announced, of interest - in which we explore other business and governance models used in archival initiatives:
Meanwhile, Artefactual as a company remains committed to being a trustworthy partner to those who care for cultural memory, and our core values are openness, trustworthiness, sustainability, and collaboration. We have a recent blog post reflecting on the last year that highlights this:
Up until now we have always made the products of our efforts freely available under open licenses, and we maintain ourselves as a company by providing value-added services based on these products and expertise and care of our cross-domain team. This too will not change.
As a company, we have previously been sales-led in our development by necessity - when approached about developing new functionality, we have historically worked with organizations to find ways to meet their needs that follow existing standards and best practices, and are useful to other AtoM users. Sponsors get their features immediately, and then all work is included in a future public release. Our business model with AtoM up until now, as well as some of the early history of the project, is described on the AtoM wiki here:
Unfortunately, this historic model of adding whatever organizations sponsor to the public open-source project is in part what has led AtoM to be a large monolithic application with a lot of complexity that is difficult to upgrade and maintain. While we remain committed to supporting AtoM in its current form until a viable replacement with a migration/upgrade path exists, as a company our approach is shifting - that is, we intend to introduce more product management processes and product vision to solutions we develop and maintain. To us this means focusing on delivering value to our clients first and foremost, and finding sustainable solutions to the problems they encounter in preserving and providing access to cultural memory. In some cases, solutions can be found without software development. Where software development is necessary or the best solution, we want to focus on development efforts that complement our product vision and the design principles guiding these products - finding the best path forward, and not necessarily the shortest one.
If this seems somewhat vague, it's perhaps because it still is at this point. We're still learning and growing. As a company, we need to ensure we can remain viable and an excellent place to work, while retaining our core values and mission. We will continue to engage outside expertise to help guide us through these changes, as well as find new ways to partner with organizations and individuals caring for cultural memory. We are also learning to say no to development projects and proposals that we don't feel best serve the projects we maintain or the organizations and individuals with whom we partner. We will share more information as it becomes relevant.
I hope this helps!
Regards,
he / him
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