Open Stack

I think Gil brings up good points below. Regardless of intent, the graphic represented below will be fodder for blog posts and criticism about how "open" OpenStack really is. This could easily get out of hand and require damage control, as Gil indicates. Perhaps heading it off is better than waiting.

Kyle

On Aug 1, 2012, at 3:32 PM, Gil Yehuda wrote:

> The optics are bad. If I was at Rackspace I would have strongly advised 700 of those people not to join, or at least not join yet. I'm waiting for the blog posts to be written that call this out.
> 
> Sure, if all you need are two people to sit on a board, then you don't need to have 750 members than anyone else.  This is not a critique of commitment to the project (which Rackspace clearly has demonstrated above everyone else), or of practical skew of votes (as you suggest, you only get two seats anyway), but of the message sent to the community (and the critics).  
> 
> Remember, Rackspace elected to create a foundation since the feedback it got from the community was that people perceive they are being over controlling. Now, it is probably the case that Rackspace *was not* being as over-controlling as people were accusing them of, but the charge was damaging enough to the long-term health of this community for Rackspace to say -- "Ok, we'll create a foundation and let it live outside of our control."  This was very clever and widely applauded as a great idea.  But this graph erodes that message, and invites further speculation that the accusation was valid and is still a concern. It looks like someone was not thinking of the implications.
> 
> The foundation exists so that people see this community as "ours" not "yours" -- and Rackspace ought to be clever about this.  If indeed it does not have a material impact on the outcome of the board, all the more reason to tell Rackspace (and HP) employees to hold off and not fuel this backlash at this delicate time. The worst case scenario? Bad press, people perceive the obvious, and leave.  I invite some damage control.
> 
> 
> gil yehuda
> director of open source and standards, Yahoo! Inc.
> gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com | (408) 336-4857
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefano Maffulli [mailto:stefano at openstack.org] 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 1:06 PM
> To: foundation at lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Nomination Process Updates
> 
> On 08/01/2012 12:37 PM, Gil Yehuda wrote:
>> Seriously, when reviewing the Individual Membership part of the bylaws 
>> we noticed that companies could "game" the system by telling all their 
>> employees to sign up.
> 
> Maybe, but the way the rules for composition of the board make it impossible for a company to have more than two people sitting on the board. Out of 24 Board Members, what's the worst that can happen?
> 
>> This is a problem that we need to
>> expose by social shaming -- which the script below will help do for 
>> us. Thank you!! I'd love to see a graph on the website itself.
> 
> I don't think there is nothing to be ashamed of if HP and Rackspace employees are flocking to join as individual members. Speaking for what I know at Rackspace, the company is investing deeply in OpenStack and I have no doubt that this sort of support from corporate leadership is permeating down the lines of employees.
> 
> I'd really like to investigate better the worst case scenario here, considering the sort of systems put in place in the bylaws to have a balanced board.
> 
> /stef
> 
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