JASIG Membership and Unicon Cooperative Support Membership

Someone wrote to me asking the difference between JASIG institutional membership and Unicon Cooperative Support membership. I'm hoping it will help awareness and understanding of this to answer here.

Disclaimer

First, note that this blog post, like all my blog posts, is my own opinion and not an official statement from Unicon. I'm sharing my understanding of these programs and my answers to the questions posed. There are additional resources on the web and helpful people who can help you to understand these programs. I include some information at the end of the post on where to learn more.
Second, I'd like to emphasize that what I'm posting here is a snapshot in time. I understand JASIG has formed a Membership Working Group and is actively revisiting the membership structure, levels, and benefits.

Contrasting JASIG membership and Unicon's Cooperative Support program

What's the difference between membership in JASIG and membership in Unicon's Cooperative Support program?

These programs are totally different in character and purpose and confer different kinds of benefits.

JASIG's membership program summarized

JASIG's membership program allows institutions to be members of JASIG, financially supporting to the organization and participating in organization governance.

Unicon's Cooperative Support program summarized

Unicon's Cooperative Support for Open Source Software program allows institutions access to Unicon's staff of people expert in various aspects of the supported software, through regularly scheduled communication, ongoing development, and dynamically allocated resources in response to support cases.

Who provides the programs?

JASIG membership is a program offered directly by JASIG. Unicon is a JASIG Commercial Affiliate and participates actively in many JASIG activities (e.g. its conferences), but Unicon is not providing the JASIG institutional membership program and is not contracted to provide any of its services.

Unicon's Cooperative Support for Open Source Software program is a program offered by Unicon. While the program is designed to cooperate with the open source projects behind the software it supports and Unicon encourages support subscribers to engage directly with the open source software projects and to use the program in that context, JASIG is not providing the support program and is not contracted to provide any of its services.

Who is currently a member of the programs?

JASIG names 40 institutional members and 3 commercial affiliates, including Duke, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Rutgers, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale in the United States, as well as schools outside the United States including Sabanci University and the University of the West of England,

Unicon's Cooperative Support for uPortal program counted 26 subscribers as of July 2007. (I'm re-using this older number from a Unicon website news item so that this blog post serves to summarize and comment upon previously released detail rather than release new detail.)

What do the subscription fees fund?

JASIG membership dues generally fund JASIG. JASIG spends money on things like having an executive director to coordinate the day to day operations of JASIG, subsidizing conferences and other organization activities, and affording the overhead of JASIG existing as an organization.

Unicon Cooperative Support for Open Source Software subscription fees fund the Cooperative Support program, including affording a director to run the program and technical folks to staff the program, servicing support cases as they arise and advancing the supported open source software in ways that support the subscribing members. Support program subscription fees fund staff availability to handle support cases as they arise as well as staffing the ongoing services (e.g. cooperative development) of the program.

What is included with program membership?

JASIG membership generally supports the JASIG organization, which coordinates and provides numerous widely beneficial services including conferences, shared source control, several successful open source projects, vibrant and responsive email lists, etc. Membership does not afford exclusive access to these resources (thank goodness) but it should be understood that JASIG membership is one way to support those things. Just because you're not coerced into paying for something doesn't mean financially supporting it isn't the right thing to do.

JASIG members enjoy discounts on JASIG conference registrations and voting rights in JASIG elections (e.g., for member-elected positions on the uPortal project steering committee).

Unicon Cooperative Support for Open Source Software generally supports Unicon's involvement in the higher education open source services market, supporting blogging like this as well as the KBAs, articles, and other resources on this website, as well as the value created by Unicon's active participation in higher education aligned open source projects. Subscribership doesn't afford exclusive access to these resources (thank goodness) but it should be understood that Cooperative Support membership is one way to support these activities.

Unicon Cooperative Support for Open Source Software membership affords access to on-demand dynamically allocated attention to your issues with the supported software. Cooperative Support membership levels include a number of support hours included in the subscription as well as a facility for purchasing additional hours of support. Developer level support affords access to the support program for organizations exploring uPortal and seeking assistance with developing their not-yet-in-production portal project. This level of support affords 10 hours of assistance routed through one support contact. The Standard support level is intended for basic support of a production uPortal instance and affords 30 hours of support within a long business hours schedule. The Enterprise support level affords almost continuous support availability on a short response time level of service and bundles 100 hours of support for six institutional contacts.

Membership in Cooperative Support does not entitle subscribers to discounts on JASIG conferences or other events.

What are the prices for the programs?

JASIG institutional membership is available for $1000, $3000, or $5000 per year depending on institutional operating budget. Commercial affiliate membership is available for $10,000 per year. Members are expected to commit to three years of membership. These prices are documented in the membership agreements linked from this page.

Unicon Cooperative Support for uPortal is available in three service levels: Developer, Standard, and Enterprise. These are priced at $5000, $15000, and $35000 per year respectively. Different service levels afford different service level agreements and number of included support hours. Some details about this are documented here, however Cooperative Support for uPortal is a complicated program and I like to think a good way to understand how it can work for you is to contact Unicon to begin a conversation with Unicon on this opportunity. I think the complexity of Cooperative Support is doing work. There's traditional technical support aspects, a capacity to direct development effort on the supported software, a balance of risk and cost between Unicon and subscribers. I think the nuances and balances are justified and result in a sustainable model for support for open source software in higher education, providing real value for subscribers, appropriate incentives for customers to focus support on valuable issues to address and a funding model that allows Unicon to staff the program additionally in the case where subscribers choose to utilize support for greater amounts of effort. Subscribership in Cooperative Support is typically renewable annually and is offered on a pro-rated basis for subscribers beginning outside of the normal support year.

Conclusion

Summary

In summary: Cooperative Support for uPortal is a technical support program with intentional community alignment. It provides support services under a service level agreement within a broader context of advancing the open source software project in the interest of subscribers.

JASIG institutional membership is a membership program of the JASIG organization allowing members to have voting input on the governance of JASIG and to financially support JASIG.

These programs are totally different animals.

I hope this post helps to clarify the context of these programs and I welcome feedback about how to make this clearer.

References

I recommend getting in touch with Jonathan Markow (executive director of JASIG) to learn more about the opportunity to become a JASIG member. This page also lists a contact email address for questions about JASIG membership and more information about JASIG's membership programs.

I recommend getting in touch with Unicon to learn more about the opportunity to become a Cooperative Support for uPortal subscriber. There's a section of the Unicon website with more information about this program. Unicon's sales consultants can also connect you with more detailed explanations of this program.