[OpenStack Foundation] Board Meeting - October 15th

Doug Hellmann doug.hellmann at dreamhost.com
Sun Oct 14 01:01:26 UTC 2012


On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Tristan Goode <tristan at aptira.com> wrote:

> There's been many interesting ideas raised on this list about the
> individual member elections, and I've proposed to Alan and Jonathan that
> there be some discussion at the Board meeting.
>
> Lloyd's suggestion that the 2 affiliate rule become 1 affiliate is worth
> considering because there are so many other individuals and companies
> involved with OpenStack. This might also mature the Foundation by moving
> the concentration of representation from the founding community towards a
> wider community. Like a child growing up and spreading its wings, seeking
> to make its own way in the world,  OpenStack is ready for new associations.
>
> Soren's suggestions are innovative, for example, not being able to vote
> for your own company. With his other suggestion in mind, perhaps in
> addition to platinum, even gold member companies with a seat could be
> excluded.
>
> Discussion of the voting of the companies with many members is always
> going to be a delicate issue. De facto, this can become an unintentional
> 'crowding out' such that the result is not truly representative of the
> wider constituency. Is this what we all want to see? I think not.
>
> Further ideas are the imposition of qualification for membership; or a
> membership fee (scaled to not exclude developing nations).
>
> Mark's suggestions that we learn from others like GNOME, the membership
> committee, and several people have raised members making a public
> statement, more worthwhile considerations?
>
> There are likely other suggestions that I've missed in these busy past few
> weeks.
>
> As the reach of OpenStack extends across the globe, (I see how many more
> international user groups there are now since the Australian user group
> started a year ago), it's going to become important to have a good
> international representation on the Board. Also, and perhaps more
> imperative, is that we take the summits and meetings on the road.
>
> Presently, by my calculation, of the 24 (Members??) there's 5 of us from
> countries outside the US, 4 individuals and 1 gold. This is not really
> representative of the emerging community.
>
> National elections in Germany, New Zealand and other countries have moved
> away from the "first past the post" system that exists now in the
> Foundation due to identified inadequacies in proper representation.
> Adoption of a more democratic scheme of election there has not caused the
> sky to fall on their heads.
>
> The ideal goal of an election is that it is truly representative.
>
> Cheers
> Tristan
>
> PS.
> Not on this topic but while we're discussing the internationalisation of
> Openstack, @mikal suggested a great idea to me yesterday. A sponsored
> travel program could be introduced for people whose location is more remote
> and who are significantly contributing to code. They may be independent or
> perhaps work for companies that cannot, or will not, send them to summits.
>

+1

The PSF has a similar "financial aid" program for attendees of PyCon US. I
don't know the particulars, but can put you in touch with the people who
do, if you're interested.

Doug


>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Soren Hansen [mailto:soren at linux2go.dk]
> > Sent: Friday, 12 October 2012 12:10 AM
> > To: Christopher B Ferris
> > Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org; Vincent Untz
> > Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Board Meeting - October 15th
> >
> > 2012/10/11 Christopher B Ferris <chrisfer at us.ibm.com>:
> > > I'd like to see OpenStack Foundation adopt a policy it should have
> > > adopted at the outset. Limit Board representation to a single
> > > individual from an affiliated entity, period.
> >
> > I think this would be a grave mistake.
> >
> > If every single member of the community wanted the same two specific
> individuals
> > to be on the board, but they just happened to work for the same company,
> why
> > should that exclude one of them? This is a theoretical situation, of
> course, but it
> > demonstrates the point:
> >
> > The goal shouldn't be to limit who gets elected. The goal is to prevent
> a company
> > from unduly affecting the results of the election. These are orthogonal
> concerns.
> > They only align somewhat under the assumption that employees of a
> particular
> > company only vote for candidates from their own company and that noone
> outside
> > said company votes for them.
> >
> > If the community in general (i.e. not just those affiliated with a
> particular company)
> > find that some people are the best fits for the board, those are the
> ones we should
> > have on the board. So what if they part of the same organisation?
> >
> > It's not hard to imagine discussions where the two opposing positions
> were
> > favourable to corporate contributors and favourable to individual
> contributors,
> > respectively. The one-individual-per-company policy does absolutely
> nothing to
> > prevent large companies to fill the board with individuals favourable to
> their goals.
> >
> > Condorcet or STV would both be vast improvements over the current
> election
> > system, but if we're really concerned that large companies excert too
> influence, why
> > don't we limit the number of voters?
> >
> > What if employees of platinum members couldn't vote at all? They already
> have a
> > representative on the board.
> >
> > What if we weren't allowed to vote for people from our own company?
> >
> > What if we flipped the vote upside down and instead of electing the
> people who gets
> > the most votes *for* them, we elect the people with the least votes
> *against* them?
> >
> > There are plenty of options that haven't been explored at all here.
> >
> > --
> > 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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> > Foundation at lists.openstack.org
> > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>
>
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