Open Stack

I really appreciate the sentiments shared by Stefano and others about
how fortunate we are to have such talented and thoughtful Individual
Member Directors regardless of their affiliation.

I appreciate Randy Bias' thoughts on how far we have come, and how
fortunate we are that Rackspace and all the sponsors have made this
possible.

>From my interactions with the Individual Member Directors all of the
them are particularly focused on the transparency and inclusiveness of
the OpenStack Foundation.

This is reassuring as there is no urgency to "fix" things.


Unfortunately it is true that the current open membership of the
OpenStack Foundation creates a burden on employees of these large
companies, which are working to redefine themselves as "Cloud"
companies to the point that this is always an significant element in
the quarterly financial calls. In this environment, these companies'
leadership encouraging their employees to participate results in the
employees becoming members to vote for for their company.

This pressure to participate does not benefit the employees of these companies.

The inflated membership and herd voting does not benefit the foundation.


Although I agree with using a Condorcet method that doesn't fix this
issue. The solid solution would be to change the diversity rule to
allow no affiliated board members. Based on the impressive candidates
from numerous organizations for the OpenStack Foundation 2012 Board
Member this would not affect the quality and expertise of the board
membership. Let these eight positions be filled by the over 100 other
supporters https://www.openstack.org/foundation/companies/ and
independents.


This can be complimented by a blunt attempt at self-reinforcing good
behavior. Change the "Statement of Interest" to require the applicant
to instead identify how they feel they have participated/contributed
to OpenStack in the last year -- there are no correct answers. This
will be published as part of their profile online.



Thank you,
--
@lloyddewolf
http://www.pistoncloud.com/