Open Stack

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the discussion on the Foundation structure over the past few weeks. As I see it, the feedback has fallen into two main buckets--structure of the Board and make up of the Technical Committee--along with a few other tactical, but important details that are probably better worked out in the next phase.

On the Board structure the most consist feedback we heard was to make it easier for a more diverse set of organizations to be involved in the Board. To make it more accessible, we have created a new membership class: Associate Members. Associate Members would pay significantly lower fees, adjusted for company size, and as a class elect one person to the Board for each Strategic seat. Individual Members would also elect one person to the Board for each Strategic seat. The new Board structure would therefore be 1/3 elected by Individual Members, 1/3 elected by Associate Members, and 1/3 appointed by Strategic Members. The wiki was updated to reflect this: http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/Structure 

While there are other Board options that have been floated around (all individuals, no individuals and everything in between), this type of mixed structure still seems to have the broadest support.

There are also open questions about the mechanics of the Technical Committee, such as the role of PTLs on it, what qualifiers (if any) are placed on those who wish to vote in the elections, etc., so the Structure draft just makes note of that fact for now. I think we should keep that discussion going in the existing threads on the topic and Thierry's draft in the wiki. We can just incorporate that document into the Structure as it gets closer to being done.

The next phase will kick off the Drafting Committee mentioned in a previous email. We'll be publishing a commitment letter this week and asking companies that intend to become members to sign to that effect. We would like to set an aggressive deadline (late March) for signatures by interested companies so that we can keep the process moving. After the deadline, the Drafting Committee will be formed with each potential Strategic Member assigning an attorney to assist Alice King in the drafting process. The committee will  produce drafts of the legal documents to be published in the open for review and comment. These documents will be a good place to get into those finer details, such as the question of how a Board member could be removed or what happens in the case of an acquisition or merger between corporate members.

We'll hold webinars on Thurdsday & Friday this week (March 8 & 9) to gather additional feedback.

Thanks again for caring so much about the future of OpenStack! 

Mark
@sparkycollier
cell: 512-791-0356