[Announcements] Jasig and Sakai Announce Name for Proposed Foundation and Membership Vote on Merger

[Josh Baron]

NOTE:  Attached are PDF versions of this announcement in English, Spanish 
(Español) and French (Français) which also include the relevant 
hyperlinks.


Jasig and Sakai Announce Name for Proposed Foundation 
and Membership Vote on Merger
Shortly after the 2011 EDUCAUSE Conference, Sakai and Jasig announced a 
community naming process for the new, merged organization we proposed a 
year before. We wanted suggestions for Foundation names that were 
memorable and reflected the core values of the merged organization which 
we previously articulated in the “Value of a Common Foundation”. In 
announcing the outcomes of this naming process today, it is important to 
emphasize that the new organization will have a strong focus on existing 
software communities and project brands. Names such as Sakai and uPortal 
won’t go away, they will remain an essential element of reaching 
constituents old and new.

The Founding Board, which was elected by the Jasig and Sakai Foundation 
Boards in October (2011) to take the lead on merger decisions, is excited 
to announce that the name of the new organization we are proposing will be 
the Apereo Foundation (listen to pronunciation). The name is a combination 
of community suggestions, and represents the fusion of two Latin words, “
aperto”, which means “open” and “mereo”, meaning merit. Given the 
importance of openness and meritocracy, in all its forms and flavors, to 
both organizations as well as the larger open-source movement, the merging 
of these Latin words to form Apereo resonated with the Founding Board. 
Combining the suggestions was also helpful in securing the domain name. 

We will begin to use Apereo as the name of the proposed new organization 
in our communication moving forward. However this is not intended to 
indicate the merger is complete; nor assumed as, most importantly, a 
majority vote by our collective membership is required to gain approval. 
To this end, the announcement of the proposed Foundation name is being 
used to launch a larger communication initiative. Over the coming four 
weeks we will release additional information, the first of which will be 
posted the week of March 26th, and create opportunities for conversations 
about the path ahead. These will include discussion lists, webinars, and 
other opportunities for community engagement on issues related to the 
merger. This will culminate in a membership vote to approve the merger 
which will take place in late-April 2012.

Finally, those who suggested the names we selected have generously donated 
the prizes we were offering to participants in our forthcoming June 
conference. We’ll come up with some exciting ideas to put them to good use 
at the event!

If you have questions or comments on the name please post them to the 
Jasig-Sakai Collaboration Google Group (subscribe at: 
http://groups.google.com/group/jasig-sakai-collaboration)



-----------------------------
Joshua Baron
Senior Academic Technology Officer
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York  12601
(845) 575-3623 (work)
Twitter: JoshBaron
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