Open Stack

Hello everyone,

During the informal call on Monday I introduced the idea of creating a 
new Foundation non-voting membership tier called "Associate members".

Rationale:

The Open Infrastructure Foundation mission is to develop, support, 
protect, and promote open infrastructure software projects (open source 
solutions to build infrastructure for further innovation). Integration 
between those projects has been identified as a key issue hindering 
further adoption of those solutions. While the Foundation directly 
supports and promotes a number of projects, its mission goes beyond the 
projects it directly hosts. We currently don’t have any program allowing 
us to formally engage with non-profit organizations sustaining open 
infrastructure projects, and help us better collaborate around events, 
promotion, and cross-community discussions.

We also have a lot of connections with the academic world (through 
OpenInfra Labs and our education initiatives) and a lot of open 
infrastructure users in the public research space. Those traditionally 
do not sign up as members, despite being very engaged (CERN, for 
example, is not a member). This makes it difficult to apply 
“member-first” thinking in some cases, and we miss out on showcasing 
those illustrious institutions as Foundation members.

Proposal:

Create a new Foundation non-voting membership tier called "Associate 
members". That tier would be free to join, and the Executive Director of 
the Foundation would be empowered to approve any interested organization 
fitting the criteria. Two criteria would be defined:

- Non-profit organizations sustaining open infrastructure projects
- Notable academic and public research institutions making extensive use 
of open infrastructure projects.

Please let me know of any question, concern, or comment on this 
proposal. My goal is to get it approved by the Board on our end of June 
meeting, and roll it out with initial candidates during Q3.

Regards,

-- 
Thierry Carrez