Rhys,

It's understandable that JISC (like any public, taxpayer-funded body)
can't promise to fund anything (even JANET) beyond it's planned budget
horizon.  (The next general election will happen before 2011. What might
a future Chancellor decide to do???  Who knows!)

I'm confident that all publishers who have been persuaded in the past by
JISC to adopt Athens (at a significant annual licence fee, payable to
Eduserv), basically to 'buy' access to the UK H/FE market for their
products, will be technically capable and persuadable, within the
Transition Programme timetable, of implementing Shib-SP instead because:

(a) there's no ongoing license fee to pay, and 

(b) it gives them similar commercial access to all of the
non-Athens-using world (i.e. much of continental Europe, most of
Scandinavia, USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and India if my discussions
last week bear any eventual fruit) that is currently at some stage of
adopting Shib-compatible federations.

...so I think simple business economics will do it, without the need for
any state (i.e. JISC) intervention.

John

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion list for Shibboleth developments 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nicole Harris
> Sent: 11 December 2006 18:56
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [JISC-SHIBBOLETH] Future of the Athens 
> Shibboleth-to-Athens gateway?
> 
> 
> Hi Rhys
> 
> I do mean funding Athens for the operation of the Gateways 
> (and appropriate development).  
> 
> I can only speculate on what a future business model might 
> look like, but I would not envisage any situation whereby an 
> institution that has moved across to federated access 
> management would pay for access to Athens protected resources.  
> 
> I really wouldn't want to discuss this further until we have 
> had a chance to review the fully operational Federation and 
> the role of the gateways within that in detail with 
> colleagues at Eduserv. It is however worth stressing again 
> that the UK Federation and Eduserv Athens are not competing 
> technologies.  The UK Federation is the new framework for 
> access management within the UK and institutions may chose to 
> make use of this framework either via open source tools or 
> via the many options that Eduserv is offering.  As such we 
> are trying to open the market rather than force through a new 
> competitor.  
> 
> Hope that helps
> 
> Nicole
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
> Sent: 08 December 2006 15:18
> To: Nicole Harris
> Cc: Discussion list for Shibboleth developments
> Subject: Re: Future of the Athens Shibboleth-to-Athens gateway?
> 
> Quoting Nicole Harris <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
> > Hi Jon
> >
> > JISC has committed funding to the gateways until July 2008 at this 
> > stage
> (no
> > JISC funding for any activity can be positively committed 
> beyond this 
> > date as it is the JISC budget renewal point).  We have promised to 
> > continually review requirements for the gateways for three years 
> > following this
> (August
> > 2008 - July 2011) subject to requirements and demand.
> > If there is still a significant demand we will of course 
> continue to 
> > fund the gateways up until 2011.  We do not expect to provide funds 
> > for the gateways as a transitory tool beyond 2011.  If the 
> demand is 
> > small, we
> will
> > discuss more appropriate funding models with Eduserv.
> 
> Hi Nicole,
> 
> Can you clear up a slight bit of confusion on our end here...
> 
> When you talk about funding the shib-athens gateway until 
> 2011, do you  
> mean funding the development of the gateway, or funding it such that  
> institutions will not have to pay EduServ for the use of it?
> 
> The gateway will be very much needed until all resources are 
> available  
> natively through the UK Federation, so that institutions who need to  
> access these resources will have to use the gateway until 
> this is done.
> 
> If institutions have to pay for the use of the gateway from 
> 2008+, the  
> business case of "doing" FAM through the UKFed is somewhat 
> destroyed,  
> as they will have to be paying EduServ either way, and this can only  
> severely harm the adoption of FAM in the UK.
> 
> Anyway, if you could clear up that first question for us, 
> we'd be most  
> grateful!
> 
> Thanks,
> Rhys.
> 
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