Open Stack

On 08/01/2012 03:58 PM, Benjamin Black wrote:
> In general, that is true.  In this case we are discussing
> representation by individuals on a board for an industry project which
> your employer has chosen to join.  They have a commercial interest in
> the activities of the board, now, and as an employee, so do you.  This
> creates a clear conflict of interest.  A conflict of interest does not
> mean you _would_ represent your employer via an individual seat, it
> means the incentives are present both for you and Cisco to do so.
> That is true for all other member companies and their employees, as
> well.  This is one reason I strongly support excluding member
> companies from fielding candidates for individual seats.

That is why no company can field more than 2 seats and why the paid-for
seats get chosen after the voted-for seats. The mechanism you were
originally asking about is exactly the protection against the problem
you bring up next.

If we did, instead, as you suggest and prevent individuals from
companies with paid-for seats from running, we wind up with a massive
problem. We would wind up with a board of directors filled purely by
people who are appointed by their companies combined with a set of
people who come from a pool that is de facto restricted to be missing
most of the active contributors of the project. Exactly how informed do
you think the conversations of that board are going to be?

I think that doing individual elections (likely to producing exciting
people like Soren or mysql) first, and then filling the paid-for seats
after with a total seat-cap per company seems like a good way to balance
the interests of the project-as-open-source-entity and the companies
funding elements of it.

> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Soren Hansen <soren at linux2go.dk> wrote:
>> 2012/8/1 Benjamin Black <b at b3k.us>:
>>> Even further, why are employees of platinum and gold member companies
>>> allows to run at all given that the point of the individual seats is
>>> to expand representation to include those unable to pay to play?
>>
>> Just like my ramblings on the Internet are a manifestation of my own
>> views and not those of my employer, the inverse holds true as well:
>> Cisco does not represent me. I've worked for no less than three
>> companies during my involvement with OpenStack. I have much more history
>> with OpenStack than I do with Cisco. Why on Earth should I not be
>> allowed to run for the board of directors?
>>
>> --
>> Soren Hansen             | http://linux2go.dk/
>> Senior Software Engineer | http://www.cisco.com/
>> Ubuntu Developer         | http://www.ubuntu.com/
>> OpenStack Developer      | http://www.openstack.org/
> 
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