Mailing List Archive

Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Some discussions at FOSDEM prompted me to write up in detail my ideas
> for the ideal foundation structure:
>
> http://wiki.openstack.org/StrawmanFoundationStructure

An interesting property of your proposal is in the "Hats" section. In
order to achieve its mission, it sounds very important to me that the
foundation works to the benefit of the OpenStack project, rather than
just be an political arena where different corporate interests compete.

The simplest structure to achieve that is to have a membership of
contributors and elect directors that must primarily wear a "project
hat", like in your proposal. Appointed directors from a membership of
corporate sponsors tend to naturally wear their "company hat".

Whatever the structure chosen, separating people wearing "company hats"
(to a specific Sponsor Advisory Board, or to specific seats on a
director board) sounds pretty essential.

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)
Release Manager, OpenStack

Hi Mark,

Thanks for pointing me at the list! It was fascinating to sit in on the
developer meeting at FOSDEM and hear the discussions - it brought back
memories of going through similar thought processes in the past with
projects like MeeGo and OpenWengo.

On 02/08/2012 08:11 PM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Some discussions at FOSDEM prompted me to write up in detail my ideas
> for the ideal foundation structure:
>
> http://wiki.openstack.org/StrawmanFoundationStructure
>
> I've just had a productive conversation with Mark and Jonathan about
> this and I'm glad to see they welcome the input. I was going to
> summarize the main differences of opinion we discussed, but I guess that
> might be an unwelcome pre-emptive disclosure of their ideas.
>
> Anyway, just another perspective to add to the mix.

One thing I think is important - and which is mentioned in the
foundation mission statement that Mark posted a while back - is what
exactly the foundation will do - this will affect the budget required to
run the foundation, the staff that will need to be hired, and will also
have an impact on participating members who are already doing those things.

The main things that will be going into the foundation appear to be
legal affairs, brand management, business/member development, marketing
and promotion, community management (for want of a better word), project
infrastructure, and event co-ordination.

The mission statement does mention "Development process and release
management" and "Meet the needs of real world users by producing great
software, and fostering their involvement in the community to provide
feedback and direction" as goals - so clearly there is an intention to
provide a level playing field, somewhere developers can participate
without any one party having a controlling influence on the project -
but I'd encourage the foundation to avoid setting up too much technical
oversight.

I think it's better to have the projects governing themselves by the
people who are doing the work, and providing the leadership on a
per-project level, rather than adding organisational overhead for
developers. That's a social issue, rather than something that should be
part of the foundation process. Although there are definitely things the
project leaders can do to encourage the growth of a project identity,
have good technical leadership and a collaborative process for targeting
new features, and so on.

Some project-wide rules of engagement, agreed by the developer
community, and of course useful - but I think they're completely
orthogonal to the foundation discussion, especially if the Technical
Board is to be a true meritocracy.

Hope these comments are helpful in framing the discussion!

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary at gnome.org
Jabber: nearyd at gmail.com

+1

well said!

On 2/10/12 11:25 AM, "Dave Neary" <dneary at gnome.org> wrote:

>Hi Mark,
>
>Thanks for pointing me at the list! It was fascinating to sit in on the
>developer meeting at FOSDEM and hear the discussions - it brought back
>memories of going through similar thought processes in the past with
>projects like MeeGo and OpenWengo.
>
>On 02/08/2012 08:11 PM, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
>> Some discussions at FOSDEM prompted me to write up in detail my ideas
>> for the ideal foundation structure:
>>
>> http://wiki.openstack.org/StrawmanFoundationStructure
>>
>> I've just had a productive conversation with Mark and Jonathan about
>> this and I'm glad to see they welcome the input. I was going to
>> summarize the main differences of opinion we discussed, but I guess that
>> might be an unwelcome pre-emptive disclosure of their ideas.
>>
>> Anyway, just another perspective to add to the mix.
>
>One thing I think is important - and which is mentioned in the
>foundation mission statement that Mark posted a while back - is what
>exactly the foundation will do - this will affect the budget required to
>run the foundation, the staff that will need to be hired, and will also
>have an impact on participating members who are already doing those
>things.
>
>The main things that will be going into the foundation appear to be
>legal affairs, brand management, business/member development, marketing
>and promotion, community management (for want of a better word), project
>infrastructure, and event co-ordination.
>
>The mission statement does mention "Development process and release
>management" and "Meet the needs of real world users by producing great
>software, and fostering their involvement in the community to provide
>feedback and direction" as goals - so clearly there is an intention to
>provide a level playing field, somewhere developers can participate
>without any one party having a controlling influence on the project -
>but I'd encourage the foundation to avoid setting up too much technical
>oversight.
>
>I think it's better to have the projects governing themselves by the
>people who are doing the work, and providing the leadership on a
>per-project level, rather than adding organisational overhead for
>developers. That's a social issue, rather than something that should be
>part of the foundation process. Although there are definitely things the
>project leaders can do to encourage the growth of a project identity,
>have good technical leadership and a collaborative process for targeting
>new features, and so on.
>
>Some project-wide rules of engagement, agreed by the developer
>community, and of course useful - but I think they're completely
>orthogonal to the foundation discussion, especially if the Technical
>Board is to be a true meritocracy.
>
>Hope these comments are helpful in framing the discussion!
>
>Cheers,
>Dave.
>
>--
>Dave Neary
>GNOME Foundation member
>dneary at gnome.org
>Jabber: nearyd at gmail.com
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