July 2012 - Foundation - lists.openinfra.dev

[OpenStack Foundation] Individual Member Elections
by Jonathan Bryce 17 Aug '12

17 Aug '12

The OpenStack Foundation has already attracted over 2,000 Individual Members in a little over a week. It's a very exciting moment for all of us involved in this effort, but also brings responsibility for each Individual and Corporate member. We've learned that someone may have violated the basic principles that hold this community together by trying to affect the nominations for the Individual Member elections. This is not what our community stands for, and we do not want to let the actions of one or a few tarnish the reputation of the thousands of individuals who are working to make OpenStack a great place to develop open source software. We are so determined to uphold our values that every member--individual or corporate--agrees to a code of conduct that prohibits abusive behavior and attempts to manipulate our elections. Our bylaws and election process have been defined and overseen by very experienced, independent legal counsel, Mark Radcliffe. We are completely committed to ensuring this process is open, fair and legitimate in accordance with our bylaws and Delaware corporate law. To ensure that the process is open, fair and legitimate, we are looking for individuals who would like to volunteer to be inspectors through the duration of the election to certify the outcome along with our counsel. No more than two affiliated members (working for the same company) can be inspectors, and any candidates who wish to run for election are also ineligible to be inspectors. As stated in the bylaws, "Each inspector, before entering upon the discharge of his duties, shall take and sign an oath to faithfully execute the duties of inspector with strict impartiality and according to the best of his ability." This will require a firm time commitment from any volunteers, as they will need to be available at a number of points through the process to fulfill their duties in a timely manner. If you are interested in being an inspector, let me know. Any complaints or concerns about the election process are taken extremely seriously. Each complaint will be reviewed by our independent counsel and addressed or brought before the full Board at its first meeting as appropriate. To facilitate reporting we have created an email address that is received only by the Foundation's independent counsel for review: electionmonitor(a)openstack.org We are also working on process improvements for nominations and elections--more details on that coming soon. In the meantime, please speak up or contact me or Mark Radcliffe directly if you have any concerns. We have all come a very long way in establishing the OpenStack Foundation--our Foundation--and are right on the threshold of having it up and running. Now is the time for us all to pull together and to make sure we continue to build the kind of inclusive, supportive community that has come so far in the last 2 years. Thanks, Jonathan 210-317-2438

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[OpenStack Foundation] Individual Nominations for Foundation Board of Directors
by Jonathan Bryce 07 Aug '12

07 Aug '12

Hi everyone, Last Wednesday we started accepting Individual Members for the OpenStack Foundation. We've had an excellent response so far with well over 1,000 Individual Members joining in the first week. I wanted to share some important information about how to nominate and elect the Individual Members for the Board of Directors. The deadline to nominate Individual Directors--August 6--is coming very quickly. Directors elected by the Individual Members will make up 1/3 of the Board or 8 of the 24 seats. You must be an Individual Member to nominate, vote or run for an Individual Member position on the Board of Directors. You can become an Individual Member on our website: http://www.openstack.org/join/ Elections for the Individual Directors will take place August 20-24. To vote in the initial Board election, you must join as an Individual Member by August 15. To appear on the ballot, an Individual Member must receive nominations from 10 other Individual Members. The deadline to nominate an Individual Member is August 6, and all nominations are submitted via email to secretary(a)openstack.org. We have created a basic page with initial nominees on it, and will be reaching out to nominees so they can add additional information about themselves. To see who is being nominated so you can support current nominees (who need 10 nominations) or recommend additional candidates, go to http://www.openstack.org/community/openstack-foundation-board-2012-election… Let us know if you have any questions, Jonathan 210-317-2438

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] [Openstack] Individual Nominations for Foundation Board of Directors
by Thierry Carrez 27 Jul '12

27 Jul '12

Duncan McGreggor wrote: > On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano(a)openstack.org> wrote: >> Speaking of that process, it's broken and needs to be fixed ASAP, since >> we'll have the PTL elections soon. The current nomination process, >> especially, is broken: it requires way too much manual processing and >> more than manipulation, it allows mistakes (like in the past election, >> where I forgot to include one candidate to the list). >> >> This is how we ran it last time: >> http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/ElectionsSpring2012 >> >> Want to help fix it? > > Yes! This probably warrants a thread of its own, but here are the current requirements for the upcoming PTL/TC election, per the Technical Committee charter: A Condorcet or a STV system should be used. Sep 5: Deadline for candidacy to Core PTL positions Sep 7-13: PTL election Sep 19: Deadline for candidacy to TC directly-elected seats (3) Sep 21-27: TC direct seats election Note 1: elections are run staggered so that people who fail to get PTL seats can decide to run for directly-elected seats (or not) Note 2: the current charter proposes to remove the ability to "be nominated": candidates just announce their candidacy. That way we don't have to track whether each nominated candidate actually accepted to run or not, and we can ask that all required information (email, bio, affiliation, platform...) is provided by the candidate before the election starts. Given that candidates could self-nominate in the past and needed to confirm their participation anyway, that sounds like a good way to reduce unnecessary complexity. Note 3: I investigated two platforms we can use for the vote: * http://www.opavote.org/ * http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/civs/ OPAvote has a few benefits (supports both Condorcet and STV, solves ex-aequo cases), but requires pure ranking (you can't select multiple candidates at the same rank). Being already elected to the TC (and not planning to apply for a PTL position), I'm available to serve as one of the election officials if need be. -- Thierry Carrez (ttx) Release Manager, OpenStack

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft
by Anne Gentle 25 Jul '12

25 Jul '12

I'm reviewing this section with an eye towards a couple of concepts: ATCs should come to the Design Summit ATCs elect the TC ATCs elect the PTLs but only for projects on which they are ATCs. (Some projects don't have PTLs.) Here's the relevant paragraph that I'd propose revising for clarity and to further emphasize how non-programming contributors can become ATCs: Individual Members who committed a change to any of the official OpenStack projects (over which the TC has final authority) over the last two 6-month release cycles are automatically considered ATC. Specific contributors who did not have a change recently accepted in one of the OpenStack projects but nevertheless feel their contribution to the OpenStack project is technical in nature (bug triagers, technical documentation writers...) can exceptionally apply for ATC by sending an email to the TC chair. Needs definition: "official OpenStack projects" are only those listed in http://github.com/openstack, right? Perhaps define that scope in this document? If ATC-ness is defined by the projects listed in http://github.com/openstack, then any recently-added blogger on openstack-planet qualifies as an ATC, is this correct? Also devstack is not listed in https://github.com/openstack/, are contributors to devstack not going to be ATCs? "apply for ATC by sending an email to the TC chair. " I recently went through the Python Software Foundation process to become a member, and I liked how the per-requisite is that you are nominated by an existing member. Could ATCs be nominated by others, not just self-applying? Also the TC chair should not be a bottle neck for this application process, can we define another process? Lastly, is it only bug triagers that are important enough to become ATCs? For docs, bug reporters are especially helpful - triaged doc bugs are more valuable of course, but without doc bugs being reported they'll never improve. It's possible that bug reporters are also bug fixers, I'm fortunate to have observed that in docs as well. But are we capturing those who test OpenStack and report bugs including security holes as ATCs? My suggested revision is: Individual Members who committed a change to any of the official OpenStack projects listed at https://github.com/openstack/ over the last two 6-month release cycles are automatically considered ATC. The TC has final authority over the listing of projects. Specific contributors who did not have a change recently accepted in one of the OpenStack projects but nevertheless feel their contribution to the OpenStack project is technical in nature (bug triagers, technical documentation writers...) can exceptionally apply for ATC either by sending an email to the TC chair or by being nominated by an existing ATC via email to the TC chair. Again, the process for ATC nomination needs more detail to avoid a bottle neck at the TC chair's inbox. Thanks for the discussion. Anne On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry(a)openstack.org> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I just posted a new draft for the Technical Committee charter: > http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/TechnicalCommittee > > The update reflects the contents of the latest Foundation bylaws draft, > and the results of yesterday's PPB meeting discussion (leaning towards > the PTLs+5 option, with a TC that has final oversight over all OpenStack > projects). > > Regards, > > -- > Thierry Carrez (ttx) > Release Manager, OpenStack > _______________________________________________ > Foundation mailing list > Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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[OpenStack Foundation] OpenStack Foundation Initial Sign Up Period
by Jonathan Bryce 20 Jul '12

20 Jul '12

Hi everyone, We've been making great progress on the formation of the OpenStack Foundation: Individual Members can register now at http://openstack.org/join. The drafting committee has completed their work, and we have a complete set of legal documents. Our Bylaws, with appendices, and Member agreements are now posted online on http://www.openstack.org/legal/. We've all worked very hard as a community to reach this point, and it's an exciting moment for all of us. In just two years, OpenStack has been established as one of the most important and fast-growing open source projects to date. We're witnessing an historic moment and should all take pride in having a part in shaping it. Individual contributors, here are steps you can now take to secure representation in the OpenStack Foundation: 1. Join as an Individual Member: http://www.openstack.org/join by August 15 2. Nominate an Individual for the Board of Directors: Send nominations to secretary(a)openstack.org by August 6 (candidates require 10 nominations to appear on the ballot) 2. Vote for Individuals to be on the Board of Directors: Elections take place August 20-24 To provide more context, the following is a full list of key dates and milestones through the formation of the Foundation: - July 18 - Initial Platinum, Gold & Individual membership sign up period opens - July 18 - Nomination period for Individual member board directors opens - August 6 - Nomination period for Individual member board directors closes - August 15 - Initial Platinum, Gold & Individual membership sign up period closes - August 20-24 - Gold & Individual Board director elections - August 27 - Initial Board meeting via teleconference - operational setup - September - Begin operational transition - October 15 - First regular quarterly Board meeting at OpenStack Summit Today marks a huge milestone! Thank you so much to each of you who helped to drive this process forward and define the framework for our community, Jonathan 210-317-2438

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[OpenStack Foundation] board chair == two votes -was- Re: Technical Committee: new draft
by Lloyd Dewolf 15 Jul '12

15 Jul '12

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Doug Davis <dug(a)us.ibm.com> wrote: > > For example, I mentioned that I didn't like PTLs having more power than > anyone else, I think the same goes for the board chair. In the current > foundation by-laws it talks about the chair having more than one vote. Would you point to a specific section(s) where this comes into play? My understanding is the two vote only comes up in a scenario that requires a tie break, often in a scenario when the chair won't have voted in creating the tie, and the fact that it is two votes is just how Delaware works. Thanks, -- @lloyddewolf http://www.pistoncloud.com/

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft
by Lloyd Dewolf 11 Jul '12

11 Jul '12

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 6:32 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry(a)openstack.org> wrote: > > I just posted a new draft for the Technical Committee charter: > http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/TechnicalCommittee I think the document might be able to be clarified because I worry that the following two statements are in conflict: "[technical committee] decides on issues affecting multiple projects, forms an ultimate appeals board for technical decisions, and generally has oversight over all OpenStack projects." "Each OpenStack core project has an elected Project Technical Lead ("PTL") who drives the project goals and has the final call over technical disputes within that project. Each project community should be self-managing by the contributors, and all disputes should be resolved through active debate and discussion by the community itself. However if a given debate cannot be clearly resolved, the PTL can make the final call." I suspect it's just a matter of language not sentiment, and that the intention is for the PTL to guide her project aligning with the greater OpenStack project Thank you, Lloyd -- @lloyddewolf http://www.pistoncloud.com/

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft
by Jonathan Bryce 06 Jul '12

06 Jul '12

I think this is definitely something to watch over the long term. When we started out, we didn't have anything like the Project Technical Lead role. With the rapid growth in the size of the codebase and the number of contributors, having a point of coordination proved necessary, and I think most involved would agree that creating the PTL improved the communication and processes for the projects. The PTL job is certainly not glamourous and I don't think they wield it like a mini-dictator. The PTLs help out in many, many areas with cat-herding, summit planning, organization between the various projects, and with helping to drive discussions and decisions. They're also required to stand for election before every release (every 6 months), allowing for those who might abuse the position to be replaced fairly quickly. I think it would be a major change to something that has been working for a number of releases now and not necessarily beneficial at this late stage in the organization process. This part of the structure is separate from the corporate governance and can be adjusted by the technical community and the Technical Committee going forward if needed. Keeping the role of the PTL in place through the Foundation set up has been in the plans since the first set of documents we published and that we've heard overwhelming support for to date. When we've had discussions about changes to the PTL role or the election cycle of PTLs, we've seen the vast majority prefer to keep in place what has been working. That said, the Technical Commitee will be empowered to explore the types of changes suggested here, so from the perspective of forming the Foundation (bylaws, etc) I think we are in good shape to move forward as these discussions continue. Jonathan On Jul 5, 2012, at 11:58 AM, Randy Bias wrote: > I also agree. I think this idea, in particular, is important for the community to thrive. PTLs being mini-dictators probably isn't sustainable. I'm not saying that's the case today. I'm simply reinforcing the ideas below. > > > Regards, > > > --Randy > > Co-Founder & CTO, Cloudscaling > +1 (415) 787-2253 [78-SCALE for SMS or voice] > TWITTER: twitter.com/randybias > LINKEDIN: linkedin.com/in/randybias > CALENDAR: http://tungle.me/randybias > > > > > > > On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:14 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote: > >> FWIW, I tend to agree. >> >> Also, FWIW, the tools that the ASF uses for voting (we use STV, the meeks >> method), are becoming their own ASF project, and thus will be >> available for anyone to use. >> >> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:00 AM, Doug Davis <dug(a)us.ibm.com> wrote: >>>> A PTL "has the final call over technical disputes within that >>> project"... "if a given debate cannot be clearly resolved, the PTL can >>> make the final call. ". >>> I tend to prefer a more community based voting/decision making system - >>> e.g: http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html >>> And if no clear consensus is reached on a particular proposal then that >>> means the status quo remains. >>> While I understand why it may seem attractive to have someone formally >>> guiding the project, I think that will happen naturally based on people's >>> interest and desire for it to succeed. Leaders tend not to need formal >>> titles. Giving one person more power than any other seems to contradict >>> the spirit of open-source IMO. >>> >>> Now, choosing someone as cat-hearder to bring everyone together for a >>> release is definitely a good idea, but even then its more like a "head >>> nag" role. They still don't have any more power than anyone else. And >>> that doesn't need a formal voting system in place - you just need someone >>> to volunteer (or everyone else to take one step back :-) >>> >>> Additionally, I think reducing the amount of bureaucracy in the >>> organization (ie. reduce all of the rules who about who controls what, who >>> is elected to what, etc) and going with more of an Apache "we're all in >>> this together" approach will only attract more people. >>> >>> Just my 2 cents. >>> >>> thanks >>> -Doug >>> ________________________________________________________ >>> STSM | Standards Architect | IBM Software Group >>> (919) 254-6905 | IBM 444-6905 | dug(a)us.ibm.com >>> The more I'm around some people, the more I like my dog. >>> >>> >>> >>> Thierry Carrez <thierry(a)openstack.org> >>> Sent by: foundation-bounces(a)lists.openstack.org >>> 07/04/2012 11:55 AM >>> >>> To >>> foundation(a)lists.openstack.org >>> cc >>> >>> Subject >>> Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Thierry Carrez wrote: >>>> I just posted a new draft for the Technical Committee charter: >>>> http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/TechnicalCommittee >>> >>> Just added a new version that explicitly mentions what a PTL is and how >>> PTL seats are elected, so that this can fully replace the current >>> governance. >>> >>> -- >>> Thierry Carrez (ttx) >>> Release Manager, OpenStack >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Foundation mailing list >>> Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org >>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Foundation mailing list >>> Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org >>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation >> _______________________________________________ >> Foundation mailing list >> Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org >> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation > > _______________________________________________ > Foundation mailing list > Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft
by Jonathan Bryce 06 Jul '12

06 Jul '12

I think this is definitely something to watch over the long term. When we started out, we didn't have anything like the Project Technical Lead role. With the rapid growth in the size of the codebase and the number of contributors, having a point of coordination proved necessary, and I think most involved would agree that creating the PTL improved the communication and processes for the projects. The PTL job is certainly not glamourous and I don't think they wield it like a mini-dictator. The PTLs help out in many, many areas with cat-herding, summit planning, organization between the various projects, and with helping to drive discussions and decisions. They're also required to stand for election before every release (every 6 months), allowing for those who might abuse the position to be replaced fairly quickly. I think it would be a major change to something that has been working for a number of releases now and not necessarily beneficial at this late stage in the organization process. This part of the structure is separate from the corporate governance and can be adjusted by the technical community and the Technical Committee going forward if needed. Keeping the role of the PTL in place through the Foundation set up has been in the plans since the first set of documents we published and that we've heard overwhelming support for to date. When we've had discussions about changes to the PTL role or the election cycle of PTLs, we've seen the vast majority prefer to keep in place what has been working. That said, the Technical Commitee will be empowered to explore the types of changes suggested here, so from the perspective of forming the Foundation (bylaws, etc) I think we are in good shape to move forward as these discussions continue. Jonathan On Jul 5, 2012, at 11:58 AM, Randy Bias wrote: I also agree. I think this idea, in particular, is important for the community to thrive. PTLs being mini-dictators probably isn't sustainable. I'm not saying that's the case today. I'm simply reinforcing the ideas below. Regards, --Randy Co-Founder & CTO, Cloudscaling +1 (415) 787-2253 [78-SCALE for SMS or voice] TWITTER: twitter.com/randybias<http://twitter.com/randybias> LINKEDIN: linkedin.com/in/randybias<http://linkedin.com/in/randybias> CALENDAR: http://tungle.me/randybias On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:14 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote: FWIW, I tend to agree. Also, FWIW, the tools that the ASF uses for voting (we use STV, the meeks method), are becoming their own ASF project, and thus will be available for anyone to use. On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:00 AM, Doug Davis <dug(a)us.ibm.com<mailto:dug@us.ibm.com>> wrote: A PTL "has the final call over technical disputes within that project"... "if a given debate cannot be clearly resolved, the PTL can make the final call. ". I tend to prefer a more community based voting/decision making system - e.g: http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html And if no clear consensus is reached on a particular proposal then that means the status quo remains. While I understand why it may seem attractive to have someone formally guiding the project, I think that will happen naturally based on people's interest and desire for it to succeed. Leaders tend not to need formal titles. Giving one person more power than any other seems to contradict the spirit of open-source IMO. Now, choosing someone as cat-hearder to bring everyone together for a release is definitely a good idea, but even then its more like a "head nag" role. They still don't have any more power than anyone else. And that doesn't need a formal voting system in place - you just need someone to volunteer (or everyone else to take one step back :-) Additionally, I think reducing the amount of bureaucracy in the organization (ie. reduce all of the rules who about who controls what, who is elected to what, etc) and going with more of an Apache "we're all in this together" approach will only attract more people. Just my 2 cents. thanks -Doug ________________________________________________________ STSM | Standards Architect | IBM Software Group (919) 254-6905 | IBM 444-6905 | dug(a)us.ibm.com<mailto:dug@us.ibm.com> The more I'm around some people, the more I like my dog. Thierry Carrez <thierry(a)openstack.org<mailto:thierry@openstack.org>> Sent by: foundation-bounces(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org> 07/04/2012 11:55 AM To foundation(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:foundation@lists.openstack.org> cc Subject Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft Thierry Carrez wrote: I just posted a new draft for the Technical Committee charter: http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/TechnicalCommittee Just added a new version that explicitly mentions what a PTL is and how PTL seats are elected, so that this can fully replace the current governance. -- Thierry Carrez (ttx) Release Manager, OpenStack _______________________________________________ Foundation mailing list Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation@lists.openstack.org> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation _______________________________________________ Foundation mailing list Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation@lists.openstack.org> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation _______________________________________________ Foundation mailing list Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation@lists.openstack.org> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation _______________________________________________ Foundation mailing list Foundation(a)lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation@lists.openstack.org> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft
by Christopher B Ferris 05 Jul '12

05 Jul '12

-----foundation-bounces(a)lists.openstack.org wrote: ----- >To: Jim Jagielski <jimjag(a)gmail.com> >From: Randy Bias >Sent by: foundation-bounces(a)lists.openstack.org >Date: 07/05/2012 12:59PM >Cc: foundation(a)lists.openstack.org >Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Technical Committee: new draft > >I also agree. I think this idea, in particular, is important for the community >to thrive. PTLs being mini-dictators probably isn't sustainable. I'm not >saying that's the case today. I'm simply reinforcing the ideas below. +1 Cheers, Christopher Ferris IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards Member, IBM Academy of Technology IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy email: chrisfer(a)us.ibm.com Twitter: christo4ferris phone: +1 508 234 2986

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