Mailing List Archive

Jim asks
> Has it ever been considered to actually move to a *pre-existing* foundation,
> one in which already has a proven track record and all these various questions > and issues solved already??

Jim, this was the first question I asked when I was introduced to the idea they wanted a new foundation. First question I asked Mark and Jonathan when I met them. First question I asked their attorney. I even asked it on Quora: http://is.gd/VFhxwX

It seems to me that the Open Source movement does not need one more foundation, unless that foundation somehow fixes the flaws that the other foundations already have. So I assumed that a careful analysis was performed and the proposal for a new foundation was based on the plan to provide the world with a better foundation -- one that was indeed unique and learned the lessons from the other ones. I learned that careful analysis was performed learning about the flaws of the other foundations (of course they have flaws), but I haven't seen how this conversation leads to a better model, just a customized one.

Instead it appears to me that the primary issue driving the creation of a net-new foundation instead of using an existing one is that the existing ones would not provide the marketing and branding emphasis that the vendor participants are looking for in order to help fuel their commercial success. Now, I'm all for that commercial success (even though the company I work for is not in the category of those vendors who plan on selling stuff here). Make money, it's Ok. But the way I see it, if that is really the need for the new organization, then perhaps, the community should simply focus on that part of the need -- a marketing-oriented trade association that is composed of the vendors, who promote conferences, business pacts, and various other promotional activities. While the rest of us create great software using a well-know open source community model -- e.g. under the "Apache way", or Eclipse, or the Linux Foundation -- or whatever. Let's not try to create something new, unless we can look at it and say "wow, that was really better."

For me, this would help the group focus their money and attention on the marketing needs (should they see value there), and leverage the technical process and governance of an existing process. Considering the size and maturity of Open Stack, I'm sure that one of the foundations would be receptive to accommodating this community and even be willing to make some changes in order to get the activity this group would provide them. I'm sure some won't, but we only need one that works better than the one we have not yet created here.


Gil Yehuda
Director of Open Source and Open Standards at Yahoo! Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org [mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org] On Behalf Of Jim Jagielski
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:43 AM
To: Jay Pipes
Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] [Openstack] Foundation Structure: An Alternative

Has it ever been considered to actually move to a *pre-existing* foundation, one in which already has a proven track record and all these various questions and issues solved already??

Hi Jim,

If there weren't already a set of diverse community projects, I'd agree with you, but in this case the foundation is very clearly being set up to be of service to the communities around OpenStack, including vendors, so I don'tshare your pessimism.

Cheers,
Dave.

"Jim Jagielski" <jimjag at gmail.com> wrote:

>It's simply a matter of the foundation itself being of prime
>consideration, and the resulting code being secondary...
>
>And so we'll see another potential successful open source "project"
>drowned by the corporate demands of its governing foundation... it's
>the tail wagging the dog.
>
>Believe it or not, a foundation can be successful without lots of paid
>staff and gobs of money...
>
>On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Gil Yehuda <gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com>
>wrote:
>> Instead it appears to me that the primary issue driving the creation
>of a net-new foundation instead of using an existing one is that the
>existing ones would not provide the marketing and branding emphasis
>that the vendor participants are looking for in order to help fuel
>their commercial success. ?Now, I'm all for that commercial success
>(even though the company I work for is not in the category of those
>vendors who plan on selling stuff here). ?Make money, it's Ok. ?But the
>way I see it, if that is really the need for the new organization, then
>perhaps, the community should simply focus on that part of the need --
>a marketing-oriented trade association that is composed of the vendors,
>who promote conferences, business pacts, and various other promotional
>activities. ?While the rest of us create great software using a
>well-know open source community model -- e.g. under the "Apache way",
>or Eclipse, or the Linux Foundation -- or whatever. ?Let's not try to
>create something new, unless we can look at it and say "wow, that was
>really better."
>>
>>
>> Gil Yehuda
>> Director of Open Source and Open Standards at Yahoo! Inc.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: foundation-bounces at lists.openstack.org
>[mailto:foundation-bounces at lists.openstack.org] On Behalf Of Jim
>Jagielski
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:43 AM
>> To: Jay Pipes
>> Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org
>> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] [Openstack] Foundation Structure:
>An Alternative
>>
>> Has it ever been considered to actually move to a *pre-existing*
>foundation, one in which already has a proven track record and all
>these various questions and issues solved already??
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Foundation mailing list
>Foundation at lists.openstack.org
>http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Well said.



Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org> wrote:

>Jim Jagielski wrote:
>> OpenStack will turn into a business consortium made up of large,
>> well-financed companies, who will determine the course and direction
>> of the so-called "open source projects" and unless you're able to pay
>
>I think you're overestimating the power of the Foundation board of
>directors over the "open source projects". The current proposal sets up
>a separate and independent technical committee, which I'm trying to make
>sure is fully elected on a one contributor = one vote basis. Each
>project is lead by a technical lead that is elected on a one author =
>one vote basis. Those groups very much set the course and direction for
>the projects.
>
>So the technical direction of OpenStack as a whole, and the technical
>direction of each project, is very much *not* pay-to-play. It's
>participate-to-play.
>
>--
>Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>Project Policy Board elected member
>Release Manager, OpenStack
>_______________________________________________
>Foundation mailing list
>Foundation at lists.openstack.org
>http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

+1

Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann at dreamhost.com> wrote:

>On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Jim Jagielski <jimjag at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Jim Jagielski wrote:
>> >> OpenStack will turn into a business consortium made up of large,
>> >> well-financed companies, who will determine the course and direction
>> >> of the so-called "open source projects" and unless you're able to pay
>> >
>> > I think you're overestimating the power of the Foundation board of
>> > directors over the "open source projects". The current proposal sets up
>> > a separate and independent technical committee, which I'm trying to make
>> > sure is fully elected on a one contributor = one vote basis. Each
>> > project is lead by a technical lead that is elected on a one author =
>> > one vote basis. Those groups very much set the course and direction for
>> > the projects.
>> >
>> > So the technical direction of OpenStack as a whole, and the technical
>> > direction of each project, is very much *not* pay-to-play. It's
>> > participate-to-play.
>> >
>>
>> Then what does the foundation board get out of it...?
>>
>> What's wrong with making the tech-cmmt the actual board, and the
>> proposed foundation board simply "sponsors"?
>> Or "benefactors"?
>
>
>There are a lot of different ways to contribute to a big project like this.
>Over at the PSF we have found it very useful to have a separate foundation
>and board made up of people from the community who have an interest in
>supporting the general python community in ways that go beyond writing
>code. The skills (and interests) needed to organize events such as hack
>days, meetups, and conferences and especially deal with subjects like
>copyright and trademark enforcement do not overlap 100% with the skills
>(and interests) of the core developers. The PSF, and its board, provide a
>focus for soliciting and receiving contributions of all sorts from
>*everyone* in the Python community. I would expect the OpenStack Foundation
>to serve a similar purpose in this community.
>
>Doug
>
>_______________________________________________
>Foundation mailing list
>Foundation at lists.openstack.org
>http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
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Let me make a suggestion. There are many participants here who represent a variety of interests, some are in large companies, some in small, some academics, some purist technologists, etc. Rackspace perceived and articulated the need to create a legal entity because of feedback from the community that OpenStack will do better if it is disconnected from one vendor. They listened and are in middle of the lengthy and complex process of doing this. We should appreciate their investment in this activity.

The community can help. Let's focus on forward progress. We all have concerns that we hope the foundation will address. Let's articulate them explicitly as risks (in a list, on a wiki). Small vendors might be concerned that large vendors could buy their way into influence. Large users might be concerned that a block of vendors fork the project and lock them into a path toward closed source. Etc. There are all sorts of risks that people perceive. Some might be more reasonable than others. But if we put it out there in a risk-list then we can, as a community:

1. weigh each risk by voting on its perceived likelihood multiplied by its severity.
2. connect each risk with some element of the foundation proposal to determine if the risk is being addressed.
3. identify those risks that the foundation does not address -- as risks we simply have to take in this community.

A risk is not a problem, it is the possibility that a problem could occur. So there is nothing accusative about listing a risk. So make the list long and inclusive. Once we have a list we can do something about it. In this way, the conversation does not backtrack. With a running risk-list we can then apply risk-abatement proposals to each risk and we can see which risks are considered likely, which severe in their potential impact, which are addressed by some abatement strategy, and which remain as risks that we accept.

Again, it's a suggestion, you are welcome to take it and use it as you see fit. After all, this is not the first time people here have created such foundations, so we can certainly leverage processes that have worked in the past.


gil yehuda
director of open source and open standards at Yahoo! Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org [mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org] On Behalf Of Jim Jagielski
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 7:33 AM
To: Thierry Carrez
Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] [Openstack] Foundation Structure: An Alternative

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org> wrote:
> Jim Jagielski wrote:
>>
>> Then what does the foundation board get out of it...?
>
> Ask them :)

Well hopefully *somebody* has!
_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation at lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

Thanks, Gil! I really like this idea. As I mentioned on Friday, we created a wiki page to start collecting the list:

http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/RiskList

I'll start to populate it with some of the risks that I've seen raised on the list and webinars this week. Everyone else please feel free to jump in the wiki and add items as well. Next week we can take the list and start a prioritization exercise like Gil suggested. We've got just about a month before the Drafting Committee will be formed so that should give us enough time to create a really good list.

Jonathan.


On Mar 16, 2012, at 10:56 AM, Doug Hellmann wrote:

+1

This is a very logical way to make sure all concerns can be addressed.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Gil Yehuda <gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com<mailto:gyehuda at yahoo-inc.com>> wrote:
Let me make a suggestion. There are many participants here who represent a variety of interests, some are in large companies, some in small, some academics, some purist technologists, etc. Rackspace perceived and articulated the need to create a legal entity because of feedback from the community that OpenStack will do better if it is disconnected from one vendor. They listened and are in middle of the lengthy and complex process of doing this. We should appreciate their investment in this activity.

The community can help. Let's focus on forward progress. We all have concerns that we hope the foundation will address. Let's articulate them explicitly as risks (in a list, on a wiki). Small vendors might be concerned that large vendors could buy their way into influence. Large users might be concerned that a block of vendors fork the project and lock them into a path toward closed source. Etc. There are all sorts of risks that people perceive. Some might be more reasonable than others. But if we put it out there in a risk-list then we can, as a community:

1. weigh each risk by voting on its perceived likelihood multiplied by its severity.
2. connect each risk with some element of the foundation proposal to determine if the risk is being addressed.
3. identify those risks that the foundation does not address -- as risks we simply have to take in this community.

A risk is not a problem, it is the possibility that a problem could occur. So there is nothing accusative about listing a risk. So make the list long and inclusive. Once we have a list we can do something about it. In this way, the conversation does not backtrack. With a running risk-list we can then apply risk-abatement proposals to each risk and we can see which risks are considered likely, which severe in their potential impact, which are addressed by some abatement strategy, and which remain as risks that we accept.

Again, it's a suggestion, you are welcome to take it and use it as you see fit. After all, this is not the first time people here have created such foundations, so we can certainly leverage processes that have worked in the past.


gil yehuda
director of open source and open standards at Yahoo! Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org<mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org> [mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org<mailto:foundation-bounces@lists.openstack.org>] On Behalf Of Jim Jagielski
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 7:33 AM
To: Thierry Carrez
Cc: foundation at lists.openstack.org<mailto:foundation at lists.openstack.org>
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] [Openstack] Foundation Structure: An Alternative

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org<mailto:thierry at openstack.org>> wrote:
> Jim Jagielski wrote:
>>
>> Then what does the foundation board get out of it...?
>
> Ask them :)

Well hopefully *somebody* has!
_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation at lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation at lists.openstack.org>
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation at lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation at lists.openstack.org>
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation at lists.openstack.org<mailto:Foundation at lists.openstack.org>
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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