Mailing List Archive

> From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to increase the
> barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single company's undue
> board control.
>

I think the proposals really want to limit the ability for a company
to have all its employees register, then have them vote for a single
candidate. In the last election a few board members were voted in
almost solely by their own companies, which at minimum makes people
feel uneasy about the process.

> In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by everyone, it is
> really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be a
> candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be elected
> in such kind of process.
>

All of the people elected were/are perfectly capable people who have
some affiliation with the community. I'd argue that all members
elected have very strong affiliation with the community and were more
than suitable candidates.

> So my major proposal is that increasing the barrier for the individuals to
> be nominated. In addition, the following 3 steps are required before voting
> start:
>
>
>
> 1. The candidate should fill an application form to the secretary of the
> foundation, to explicitly express his or her intention to be nominated.
>
> The application form should include some basic information/facts such as who
> are you, what you have done for the community, what's your contribution to
> OpenStack, etc. More importantly, the application form must be reviewed and
> validated by the secretary or someone like Election Committee (seems EC is
> not existed in the bylaw of foundation, hereby can be a temporary committee
> consist of secretary and legal team of foundation), thus make sure
> application form validated, and the contents in the form is true. If his or
> her application is accepted, then go to next step.
>

This seems sane.

>
>
> 2. The candidate is required to make a public statement in the ML and
> openstack.org.
>
> In our first election, there already has such a process in place such as
> the candidate should answer 4 questions from the secretary. However, it was
> only optional. Thus, in one case I know that someone got it away who did
> not say anything about himself, his professional work before and his future
> contribution plan, nor answer the 4 questions, BUT at the end, he had even
> been elected. Such kind of case seems suspicious and unfair for other more
> qualified candidate.
>

I don't think this is necessary. If people don't feel like they need
to campaign, they shouldn't be forced to.

I don't think many people put a lot of effort into campaigning this
election. I have a feeling most people were voted for because people
knew them from lists, IRC, summits, etc.. In a few cases it's likely
that people voted for a candidate because they signed up as a member
to support their organization and the only name on the ballot they
knew was from their company.

>
>
> 3. The candidate is required to make a live or recorded video speech to
> express himself, to state his understanding of OpenStack project as well as
> the mission of our foundation.
>
> Most of people in our community believe that the individual board members
> will play a critical role to represent the whole community, they must be
> qualified enough to represent the community, through the video, the
> community will be more familiar with our candidate in person, thus it will
> help the individual members to make the right judgments. From my
> observation, the board members are often invited to giving a speech in his
> or her local regional user group meetups, and will also present in many
> public cloud tech events, so he or she should has the ability, as well as
> better understanding of the foundation, OpenStack projects, to promote
> OpenStack and the community, to influence more and more people use
> OpenStack, to involve in the community.
>
>

I'm strongly opposed to this. I surely don't want to make a video if I
choose to run again. I wouldn't have done so last time, either. It
isn't that I'm shy to speak in public or to make videos. I do video
interviews often and they are *really* awkward if they aren't
professionally done.

- Ryan

_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 09:24 +0800, Hui Cheng wrote:
> Hi all:
>
> ** **
>
> Until now we already have tons of discussions regarding the individual
> board member election, and we have some meaningful proposals from the
> following discussions:****
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19569****
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19675****
>
> ** **
>
> From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to increase
> the barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single
> company's undue board control.****
>
> ** **
>
> In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by everyone, it is
> really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be
> a candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be
> elected in such kind of process.****

Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. None of your ideas or crazy
but, like Ryan, I'd be wary of requiring people to publish a video.

However, I think you've focused on the wrong thing. The main issue is
not that we had too many incapable candidates, nor that those elected
are incapable, but that we had large numbers of people affiliated with a
small number of companies voting for employees of their company.

The issue isn't so much the correlation between affiliation and voting
pattern either IMHO, but just the sheer number of people doing so.

Personally, I just wonder why 600+ people from an individual company
should have voting rights in the election. In the cases of e.g. the Red
Hat and Cisco OpenStack teams, it was only those actively involved with
the project who joined the Foundation and voted.

Cheers,
Mark.


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

Thanks for Ryan and Mark's comments,
I would like to improve my humble ideas.

I definitely agree that it is a issue that one single company having large
number of voters, and we should take somewhat actions to limit it, and I do
thank we can also employ additional methods to improve the whole process of
individual board election.

The idea behind my thoughts is that it is easier to increase the barrier of
the minor candidates and keep it eligible meritocracy than to set higher
barriers for the whole individual members, because the latter involves
6000+ members.

Regarding the video record, I would admit lack of thorough consideration,
the type of barrier maybe not suitable or practical for all candidates, so
I would agree it should not be required. Thanks for your indication.

But still, I would rather insist that a public statement should be
required, it's original intention is not for campaign, but sort of way to
make candidates show their involvement and contribution in OpenStack, as
well as his their understanding of OpenStack Foundation and future plan to
further achieve foundation's mission, thereby facilitating voter to make
his own choice.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 09:24 +0800, Hui Cheng wrote:
> > Hi all:
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > Until now we already have tons of discussions regarding the individual
> > board member election, and we have some meaningful proposals from the
> > following discussions:****
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19569****
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19675****
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to increase
> > the barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single
> > company's undue board control.****
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by everyone, it
> is
> > really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be
> > a candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be
> > elected in such kind of process.****
>
> Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. None of your ideas or crazy
> but, like Ryan, I'd be wary of requiring people to publish a video.
>
> However, I think you've focused on the wrong thing. The main issue is
> not that we had too many incapable candidates, nor that those elected
> are incapable, but that we had large numbers of people affiliated with a
> small number of companies voting for employees of their company.
>
> The issue isn't so much the correlation between affiliation and voting
> pattern either IMHO, but just the sheer number of people doing so.
>
> Personally, I just wonder why 600+ people from an individual company
> should have voting rights in the election. In the cases of e.g. the Red
> Hat and Cisco OpenStack teams, it was only those actively involved with
> the project who joined the Foundation and voted.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark.
>
>


--
Hui Cheng - 程辉

Community Manager of COSUG
Technical Manager of Sina Corporation

Twitter: @freedomhui <http://twitter.com/freedomhui>
Blog: freedomhui.com
Weibo: weibo.com/freedomhui

+1 

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards
Member, IBM Academy of Technology
IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
Twitter: christo4ferris
phone: +1 508 234 2986


-----Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> wrote: -----
To: Hui Cheng <freedomhui@gmail.com>
From: Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com>
Date: 10/26/2012 04:51AM
Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board election

On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 09:24 +0800, Hui Cheng wrote:
> Hi all:
>
> ** **
>
> Until now we already have tons of discussions regarding the individual
> board member election, and we have some meaningful proposals from the
> following discussions:****
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19569****
>
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19675****
>
> ** **
>
> From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to increase
> the barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single
> company's undue board control.****
>
> ** **
>
> In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by everyone, it is
> really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be
> a candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be
> elected in such kind of process.****

Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. None of your ideas or crazy
but, like Ryan, I'd be wary of requiring people to publish a video.

However, I think you've focused on the wrong thing. The main issue is
not that we had too many incapable candidates, nor that those elected
are incapable, but that we had large numbers of people affiliated with a
small number of companies voting for employees of their company.

The issue isn't so much the correlation between affiliation and voting
pattern either IMHO, but just the sheer number of people doing so.

Personally, I just wonder why 600+ people from an individual company
should have voting rights in the election. In the cases of e.g. the Red
Hat and Cisco OpenStack teams, it was only those actively involved with
the project who joined the Foundation and voted.

Cheers,
Mark.


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

? 2012?10?26? 19:01, Hui Cheng ??:
> Thanks for Ryan and Mark's comments,
> I would like to improve my humble ideas.
>
> I definitely agree that it is a issue that one single company having
> large number of voters, and we should take somewhat actions to limit
> it, and I do thank we can also employ additional methods to improve
> the whole process of individual board election.
>
> The idea behind my thoughts is that it is easier to increase the
> barrier of the minor candidates and keep it eligible meritocracy than
> to set higher barriers for the whole individual members, because the
> latter involves 6000+ members.
>
> Regarding the video record, I would admit lack of thorough
> consideration, the type of barrier maybe not suitable or practical for
> all candidates, so I would agree it should not be required. Thanks for
> your indication.
>
> But still, I would rather insist that a public statement should be
> required, it's original intention is not for campaign, but sort of way
> to make candidates show their involvement and contribution in
> OpenStack, as well as his their understanding of OpenStack Foundation
> and future plan to further achieve foundation's mission, thereby
> facilitating voter to make his own choice.
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com
> <mailto:markmc@redhat.com>> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 09:24 +0800, Hui Cheng wrote:
> > Hi all:
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > Until now we already have tons of discussions regarding the
> individual
> > board member election, and we have some meaningful proposals
> from the
> > following discussions:****
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19569****
> >
> > http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19675****
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to
> increase
> > the barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single
> > company's undue board control.****
> >
> > ** **
> >
> > In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by
> everyone, it is
> > really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be
> > a candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be
> > elected in such kind of process.****
>
> Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. None of your ideas or crazy
> but, like Ryan, I'd be wary of requiring people to publish a video.
>
> However, I think you've focused on the wrong thing. The main issue is
> not that we had too many incapable candidates, nor that those elected
> are incapable, but that we had large numbers of people affiliated
> with a
> small number of companies voting for employees of their company.
>
> The issue isn't so much the correlation between affiliation and voting
> pattern either IMHO, but just the sheer number of people doing so.
>
Yes, that's the main issue for the individual board
election.Bothincrease barrierfor the candidates and public statement is
not useful for this issue, so they can be options, not required.
>
> Personally, I just wonder why 600+ people from an individual company
> should have voting rights in the election. In the cases of e.g.
> the Red
> Hat and Cisco OpenStack teams, it was only those actively involved
> with
> the project who joined the Foundation and voted.
>
If the company has more than 600+ people who want to join the
Foundation, why not joined the Platinum or Gold members first? No
sponsored but want to have a seat is unfair for the small companies and
other sponsors, as they have a lot of electoral resources.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Hui Cheng - ??
>
> Community Manager of COSUG
> Technical Manager of Sina Corporation
>
> Twitter: @freedomhui <http://twitter.com/freedomhui>
> Blog: freedomhui.com <http://freedomhui.com/>
> Weibo: weibo.com/freedomhui <http://weibo.com/freedomhui>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

Personally I would even be in favour of only counting votes of those who
have actually committed code or contributed to the project in addition
to board members votes. This removes the issues of getting everyone in a
company to vote for someone, and hey, if everyone in the company submits
code and has patches accepted in order to be able to vote, that too is a
great way to increase contribution.. :-)

Apache uses a model of binding and non-binding votes. i.e. everyone can
voice their opinion into the mix, but only those that have shown
substantial contribution have their votes counted as binding.

This I believe goes a long way to resolve this. Having 600+ alligned
votes from a single company entirely violates the 'Do what is best for
the project', and if that practice is allowed, the project will turn
into a political mess.

Carl.


On 10/26/2012 07:27 AM, Christopher B Ferris wrote:
> +1
>
> Cheers,
>
> Christopher Ferris
> IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards
> Member, IBM Academy of Technology
> IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy
> email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
> Twitter: christo4ferris
> phone: +1 508 234 2986
>
>
> -----Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com> wrote: -----
> To: Hui Cheng <freedomhui@gmail.com>
> From: Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com>
> Date: 10/26/2012 04:51AM
> Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board election
>
> On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 09:24 +0800, Hui Cheng wrote:
>> Hi all:
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Until now we already have tons of discussions regarding the individual
>> board member election, and we have some meaningful proposals from the
>> following discussions:****
>>
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19569****
>>
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/openstack/foundation/19675****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> From my understanding, most proposals are focusing on how to increase
>> the barrier for becoming individual members and limit one single
>> company's undue board control.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> In the initial board election, everyone can be nominated by everyone, it is
>> really easy for someone to get at least 10 nominators, thus to be
>> a candidate, and then voting began. Thus any incapable person can be
>> elected in such kind of process.****
> Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. None of your ideas or crazy
> but, like Ryan, I'd be wary of requiring people to publish a video.
>
> However, I think you've focused on the wrong thing. The main issue is
> not that we had too many incapable candidates, nor that those elected
> are incapable, but that we had large numbers of people affiliated with a
> small number of companies voting for employees of their company.
>
> The issue isn't so much the correlation between affiliation and voting
> pattern either IMHO, but just the sheer number of people doing so.
>
> Personally, I just wonder why 600+ people from an individual company
> should have voting rights in the election. In the cases of e.g. the Red
> Hat and Cisco OpenStack teams, it was only those actively involved with
> the project who joined the Foundation and voted.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation



_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

On 10/25/2012 10:01 PM, Ryan Lane wrote:
> So my major proposal is that increasing the barrier for the individuals to
> > be nominated. In addition, the following 3 steps are required before voting
> > start:


I think this is simple:

- Only allow nomination from people Already contributing to OpenStack.
Proof from past actions is always stronger than future intentions.
- Only allow active contributors to have binding votes on nominees.
- The person that nominates, can't be the nominee and can't be the
person that seconds the nomination.
- The nominee on acceptance of the nomination needs to make a public
statement (on e-mail list) on their commitment to act on behalf of the
project and in the interests of the project.

Anyone else needs to earn their stripes by contributing to the project
first, and build enough karma in so much as someone else will be willing
to nominate them.

Carl.


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.

Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?

Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
> Sent: 31 October 2012 18:28
> To: foundation@lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board
election
>
> - Only allow nomination from people Already contributing to OpenStack.
> Proof from past actions is always stronger than future intentions.
>

I think Tim has a point. Not everyone who contributes to OpenStack
does so as a developer. Some of the most important input we get are
from deployers who are not contributing code. While I am definitely
an advocate for enforcing a higher barrier to entry in the foundation
membership, I also do not wish to deny a voice to some of the most
important people in the community.

To be honest, I think a foundation membership yearly fee is the right
answer. Maybe something as informal as an EFF membership, where you
pay 100 dollars for a t-shirt / membership.

While it's possible that a company will cover the costs of a
foundation membership, it's easy enough to forbid corporate
sponsorship of foundation members. And at that point the risk
outweighs the reward in terms of violating that.

If someone truly is committed to the OpenStack community they should
be willing to invest invest a small sum into supporting the
foundation. While I like the heinlein-esque service guarantees
citizenship approach, I'd think service is too diverse a term to be
easily measured. Financial contributions do well to raise the bar.

We could easily drop the price down a great deal for anyone
registering with a .edu email address for educational discounts.

An alternative model is the operate similar to the CISSP and allow
people who pass an as yet to be defined certification to vote for the
board. If we intend to have a foundation approved educational
curriculum this could be an option for promoting that.

-Matt

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Tim Bell <Tim.Bell@cern.ch> wrote:
> It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
> other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
>
> Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?
>
> Tim
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
>> Sent: 31 October 2012 18:28
>> To: foundation@lists.openstack.org
>> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board
> election
>>
>> - Only allow nomination from people Already contributing to OpenStack.
>> Proof from past actions is always stronger than future intentions.
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>

_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

On 10/31/2012 06:21 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
> Having 600+ alligned votes from a single company entirely violates
> the 'Do what is best for the project',

Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
and not do what's best for OpenStack?

I think it's worth to repeat that openness and easy access to OpenStack
is one of the founding principle of this community. The project at the
beginning and the Foundation later has been designed to be very
inclusive http://wiki.openstack.org/Open. The comparisons with other
projects/foundations are interesting but we need to keep in mind that
OpenStack is very different from all of the existing ones.

While I agree that we should investigate the possibility to use a
different election algorithm to increase the chances of electing the
best candidates, as discussed before, I don't think we should limit
access to the Foundation (at least not until there is proof that
openness and easy access is bad for OpenStack).

/stef

--
this is my opinion and not that of my current, former and even future
employers

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On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano@openstack.org>wrote:

> On 10/31/2012 06:21 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
>
>> Having 600+ alligned votes from a single company entirely violates
>> the 'Do what is best for the project',
>>
>
> Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
> people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
> representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
> some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
> and not do what's best for OpenStack?
>
>
If every large organization did this it would ensure that smaller
organizations were excluded, even if the smaller organizations provide
*way* more value to the community. It's an abuse of the system, really. The
people elected are perfectly capable, but that's not really the point.


> I think it's worth to repeat that openness and easy access to OpenStack
> is one of the founding principle of this community. The project at the
> beginning and the Foundation later has been designed to be very
> inclusive http://wiki.openstack.org/Open**. The comparisons with other
> projects/foundations are interesting but we need to keep in mind that
> OpenStack is very different from all of the existing ones.
>
>
It's possible to be Open without having a very abusable system.

Wikimedia is very open, but even we have requirements for voting. I think
they are fairly sane. They basically say you can't be blocked and you must
be a participant in some kind of way:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/en#Requirements


> While I agree that we should investigate the possibility to use a
> different election algorithm to increase the chances of electing the
> best candidates, as discussed before, I don't think we should limit
> access to the Foundation (at least not until there is proof that openness
> and easy access is bad for OpenStack).
>
>
I think large organizations having very easy ability to game the system
(purposely or accidentally) with evidence of this in the last election
shows that this level of openness is already bad for OpenStack.

- Ryan

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Tim Bell <Tim.Bell@cern.ch> wrote:

> It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
> other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
>
> Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?
>

+1. We really need to define this. I commit relatively little code, and
some cycles I commit none, but I'm definitely a contributor in some way and
I'd like to vote in the future.

We can start by aggregating some:

1. People who've contributed code in the last two cycles
2. People who participate on the lists
3. Board members
4. People who actively evangelize (might be hard to vet this one)
5. OpenStack foundation staff
6. Distro packaging maintainers (and related people)

Any other ideas?

- Ryan

>>> On 10/31/2012 at 04:12 PM, Ryan Lane <rlane@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Stefano Maffulli
> <stefano@openstack.org>wrote:
>
>> On 10/31/2012 06:21 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
>>
>>> Having 600+ alligned votes from a single company entirely violates
>>> the 'Do what is best for the project',
>>>
>>
>> Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
>> people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
>> representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
>> some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
>> and not do what's best for OpenStack?
>>
>>
> If every large organization did this it would ensure that smaller
> organizations were excluded, even if the smaller organizations provide
> *way* more value to the community. It's an abuse of the system, really. The
> people elected are perfectly capable, but that's not really the point.
>
>
>> I think it's worth to repeat that openness and easy access to OpenStack
>> is one of the founding principle of this community. The project at the
>> beginning and the Foundation later has been designed to be very
>> inclusive http://wiki.openstack.org/Open**. The comparisons with other
>> projects/foundations are interesting but we need to keep in mind that
>> OpenStack is very different from all of the existing ones.
>>
>>
> It's possible to be Open without having a very abusable system.
>
> Wikimedia is very open, but even we have requirements for voting. I think
> they are fairly sane. They basically say you can't be blocked and you must
> be a participant in some kind of way:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/en#Requirements
>
>
>> While I agree that we should investigate the possibility to use a
>> different election algorithm to increase the chances of electing the
>> best candidates, as discussed before, I don't think we should limit
>> access to the Foundation (at least not until there is proof that openness
>> and easy access is bad for OpenStack).
>>
>>
> I think large organizations having very easy ability to game the system
> (purposely or accidentally) with evidence of this in the last election
> shows that this level of openness is already bad for OpenStack.

Ryan, I would like to respectfully differ with a couple of your points. First If someone wants to game the system it is irrelevant whether they are part of a large or small company. Every voting model that has been tossed out on the mailing list has the ability to be gamed regardless of whether it is by a small or large company or individual. By changing the model you only change 'how' the gaming would be done. I agree with Stefano's assessment, let's not kill one of the founding strengths of our community "before there is proof that openness and easy access is bad for OpenStack". Am I saying that we should not improve our election system? No. We simply need to ensure that the changes will give what we want without losing more in return.

Second people keep drawing the conclusion that because person X with a mail address of X@bigcompany.com voted for candidate@bigcompany.com they purposefully gamed the system. Have we asked them? My findings are that they simply voted for candidate@bigcompany.com because they knew that person and felt that they would do a great job. Being new to the community they weren't as familiar with the other candidates - particularly candidates from other companies.

A great many people are new to the OpenStack community. Why did they join? Because they are excited about the prospects of the community and they are interested in being part of it and in seeing it succeed. People from all parts of the Cloud ecosystem have joined, and with it a huge variety of talents; coding, marketing, documentation, triage, legal.... The list is long and, that is why it becomes hard to create the definition of a contribution. What a great problem to have! It means that OpenStack is maturing and the ecosystem is growing.

Let's not lose that spark of interest from the new members. Let's put our founding strength at the top of the discussion list and figure out how to help our new members to get to know a greater number of the community, to help them to know how to contribute their talents, and to become integrated into the community. If we do that I am confident that people will naturally vote for the best candidates over company affiliation, with that OpenStack will really succeed!

-AlanClark

>
> - Ryan


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I would add



7. Attendee at the OpenStack summit or other OpenStack events during past
two cycles



Interested parties who are informed should be allowed to vote.



Tim



From: Ryan Lane [mailto:rlane@wikimedia.org]
Sent: 31 October 2012 23:22
To: Tim Bell
Cc: cctrieloff@redhat.com; foundation@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board election



On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Tim Bell <Tim.Bell@cern.ch> wrote:

It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.

Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?



+1. We really need to define this. I commit relatively little code, and some
cycles I commit none, but I'm definitely a contributor in some way and I'd
like to vote in the future.



We can start by aggregating some:



1. People who've contributed code in the last two cycles

2. People who participate on the lists

3. Board members

4. People who actively evangelize (might be hard to vet this one)

5. OpenStack foundation staff

6. Distro packaging maintainers (and related people)



Any other ideas?



- Ryan

On 10/31/2012 01:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
> It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
> other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
>
> Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?


This has been debated in many communities before. Here is of the best
I've seen - Contribution can be documentation, community management,
etc. Anything that helps the project and is recognised to be valuable
enough that the individual can gain karma over a period of consistently
providing value to the project (OpenStack). That is the current
committing population and board need to agree that the contribution is
valuable and a track record of contribution exists.

Carl.


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

On 10/31/2012 03:36 PM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> On 10/31/2012 06:21 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
>> Having 600+ alligned votes from a single company entirely violates
>> the 'Do what is best for the project',
>
> Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
> people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
> representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
> some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
> and not do what's best for OpenStack?


yes, I've seen it too many times before.

In my view, contribution is your ticket to be able to vote &
contribution is your ticket to be able to nominate someone.

Carl.


_______________________________________________
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Would I be considered a contributor to OpenStack? I haven't written any documentation officially in the project. I haven't committed a line of code officially in the project. My idea of a contributor may be significantly different than what other people believe. I am for a broad, open, inclusive community. If people care enough about OpenStack to create an account, learn the voting process, and show up at the virtual voting booth their voice should be heard. Creating barriers to who can and cannot have a voice is fundamentally against open. I know we're all trying to figure this out of passion and care for the project -- we want what is best for it and what will make it successful. So far we haven't turned people away, we haven't excluded anyone that wants to participate in the way they choose and through that process we have an amazing project we all get to be part of -- from the foundation staff, to the PTLs, to the 24 members of our elected and appointed board, to guys like me that do what we can and participate in ways we believe we can help.

Bret Piatt

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 8:36 AM
To: Tim Bell
Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board election

On 10/31/2012 01:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
> It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
> other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
>
> Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?


This has been debated in many communities before. Here is of the best
I've seen - Contribution can be documentation, community management,
etc. Anything that helps the project and is recognised to be valuable
enough that the individual can gain karma over a period of consistently
providing value to the project (OpenStack). That is the current
committing population and board need to agree that the contribution is
valuable and a track record of contribution exists.

Carl.


_______________________________________________
Foundation mailing list
Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

_______________________________________________
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Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

I'm struggling with a way to inventory non-code contributions such as
conference presentations or organising user groups. Assuming we should
expect memberships of 1000s for OpenStack, it is not easy to build up the
list of contributors.

We can ask people as part of their membership application but this may not
be felt to be sufficiently rigourous.

Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
> Sent: 01 November 2012 14:36
> To: Tim Bell
> Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board
election
>
> On 10/31/2012 01:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
> > It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many
> > ways other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
> >
> > Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?
>
>
> This has been debated in many communities before. Here is of the best I've
> seen - Contribution can be documentation, community management, etc.
> Anything that helps the project and is recognised to be valuable enough
that
> the individual can gain karma over a period of consistently providing
value to
> the project (OpenStack). That is the current committing population and
> board need to agree that the contribution is valuable and a track record
of
> contribution exists.
>
> Carl.

Bret,

I would simply ask, how do you want to contribute? doing meetups,
helping on IRC, helping new users on the mail lists. bloging...

It can be anything valuable that is recognizable to the community -
point is it need to be valuable and recognizable.

Having a bar does not mean closed. The key is the criteria is open, and
anyone can put the effort in to meet the criteria. In the same way, the
code base is open today, but not anyone can push anything into the
codebase. First you need to understand the code base, then you need to
do something valuable and create a patch. then others need to agree that
the patch is good (valuable), then your patch is included. There is
clearly a bar here, and yes the project is open. Open means there is a
clear criteria, and anyone can meet it if they put the effort in. The
key is the process and criteria is documented, and run in the open and
transparently. i.e. there is not someone randomly deciding in private.

Carl.



On 11/01/2012 09:44 AM, Bret Piatt wrote:
> Would I be considered a contributor to OpenStack? I haven't written any documentation officially in the project. I haven't committed a line of code officially in the project. My idea of a contributor may be significantly different than what other people believe. I am for a broad, open, inclusive community. If people care enough about OpenStack to create an account, learn the voting process, and show up at the virtual voting booth their voice should be heard. Creating barriers to who can and cannot have a voice is fundamentally against open. I know we're all trying to figure this out of passion and care for the project -- we want what is best for it and what will make it successful. So far we haven't turned people away, we haven't excluded anyone that wants to participate in the way they choose and through that process we have an amazing project we all get to be part of -- from the foundation staff, to the PTLs, to the 24 members of our elected and appointed board, to guys like me that do what we can and participate in ways we believe we can help.
>
> Bret Piatt
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 8:36 AM
> To: Tim Bell
> Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board election
>
> On 10/31/2012 01:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
>> It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many ways
>> other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
>>
>> Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?
>
> This has been debated in many communities before. Here is of the best
> I've seen - Contribution can be documentation, community management,
> etc. Anything that helps the project and is recognised to be valuable
> enough that the individual can gain karma over a period of consistently
> providing value to the project (OpenStack). That is the current
> committing population and board need to agree that the contribution is
> valuable and a track record of contribution exists.
>
> Carl.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation




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Foundation@lists.openstack.org
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

The way to "inventory" it is to allow the community itself to do so. In any healthy and vibrant community, the community itself knows who, and what, provides value and is, therefore, a "contribution".

If a self-selected group determines what is, and is not, a contribution, then you are creating or perpetuating a division where none should exist.

--
Jim Jagielski
Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)


On Thursday, November 1, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Tim Bell wrote:

>
> I'm struggling with a way to inventory non-code contributions such as
> conference presentations or organising user groups. Assuming we should
> expect memberships of 1000s for OpenStack, it is not easy to build up the
> list of contributors.
>
> We can ask people as part of their membership application but this may not
> be felt to be sufficiently rigourous.
>
> Tim
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Carl Trieloff [mailto:cctrieloff@redhat.com]
> > Sent: 01 November 2012 14:36
> > To: Tim Bell
> > Cc: foundation@lists.openstack.org (mailto:foundation@lists.openstack.org)
> > Subject: Re: [OpenStack Foundation] Proposals for individual board
> >
>
> election
> >
> > On 10/31/2012 01:33 PM, Tim Bell wrote:
> > > It is an interesting question to define 'contribution'. There are many
> > > ways other than committing code that people help with OpenStack.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions on how to define a contributor ?
> >
> >
> > This has been debated in many communities before. Here is of the best I've
> > seen - Contribution can be documentation, community management, etc.
> > Anything that helps the project and is recognised to be valuable enough
> >
>
> that
> > the individual can gain karma over a period of consistently providing
>
> value to
> > the project (OpenStack). That is the current committing population and
> > board need to agree that the contribution is valuable and a track record
> >
>
> of
> > contribution exists.
> >
> > Carl.
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation@lists.openstack.org (mailto:Foundation@lists.openstack.org)
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation
>
>
>
>
> Attachments:
> - smime.p7s
>

A. The OpenStack Foundation's individual members that voted in the 1st
Individual Member Election was dominated by Rackspace, Dell, and HP
employees.

B. A simple manual sampling using web search suggests the majority of
these individual members only public participation in OpenStack has
been voting in the election.

C. The majority of these members voted for candidates from their
company. Based on the strict affiliation of voting it's incredibly
unlikely that the majority of these members considered the abilities
and individual positions of other candidates, otherwise statistically
there should have been more voting for multiple candidates,
specifically more unaffiliated votes.

Unfortunately over time there will be more abuse and more large
organizations participating in this arms races.


On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Bret Piatt <bret.piatt@rackspace.com> wrote:
>
> ... If people care enough about OpenStack to create an account, learn the voting process, and show up at the virtual voting booth their voice should be heard. ...

This only demonstrates they care enough about the success of their
company, who's leadership encouraged them taking the 5 minutes to vote
for their company's leadership.

This is confirmed has there has not been a tsunami of participation
from Dell, HP, and Rackspace since the election. The disproportionate
membership is not reflected by disproportionate participation in
OpenStack.


On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 8:05 PM, Alan Clark <aclark@suse.com> wrote:
>
> Second people keep drawing the conclusion that because person X with a mail address of X@bigcompany.com voted for candidate@bigcompany.com they purposefully gamed the system. Have we asked them? My findings are that they simply voted for candidate@bigcompany.com because they knew that person and felt that they would do a great job. Being new to the community they weren't as familiar with the other candidates - particularly candidates from other companies.

Where and how did you ask "them"? You think your sampling is likely to
be representative? You think there will be statistically significant
full ballet voting in January by this no-longer-new membership if
there is not fundamental changes to the membership and election?


On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 12:36 PM, Stefano Maffulli
<stefano@openstack.org> wrote:
> On 10/31/2012 06:21 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
>>
>> Having 600+ alligned votes from a single company entirely violates
>> the 'Do what is best for the project',
>
> Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
> people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
> representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
> some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
> and not do what's best for OpenStack?

Those are not the most relevant questions -- what does "best possible
people" even mean, how could that even be answered.

Does the Individual Member Director election process support
individual candidates skilled at governance and knowledgable about
OpenStack and Open Source project governance?

Does the Individual Member Director election process support
candidates with broad (or diverse) support?

Do the results of Individual Member Director election process reflect
the will of OpenStack Foundation individual *participants* ?

We need to add *active* membership to the equation. The most immediate
way to do this is to force diversity of the board, and then work the
long process to ensure only an active community is voting and rollback
the original diversity measures.



Although, I think not being able to vote for someone from your own
organization is a fantastically novel solution, it also seems
impractical as it would require a specialized voting system, which I
don't think currently exists. The pragmatic immediate solutions
continue to be:

0. Use a Condorcet or other rank voting system

1. Allow no affiliated board members, ie strict diversity of the board.


Also, I'd like to see the "Statement of Interest" to require the
applicants to identify how they feel they have participated to
OpenStack in the last year -- there are no correct answers. This will
be published as part of their profile online. This should provide
interesting insights, some small benefit to membership self-selection
with no harmful side effects.



Once again, even with these challenges, I'm very thankful that all the
Individual members of the board are brilliant representatives.

Once individual representation is ensured on this plane, we can move
on to safeguarding against geographic dominance ;-)


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

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The first round of elections had a lower threshold for time you had to be
registered (30 days). This round has 180 days from article 3.9. See the
bylaw point below
(http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/Bylaws#ARTICLE_IV._BOARD_OF
_DIRECTORS).

Thus, for the next individual elections for 2013, there does not appear to
have been a significant surge in membership since the foundation launch from
companies and therefore the membership will not be subject to a further arms
race in the 2013 round.

Tim

3.9 Voting and Proxies.

(a) Each Individual Member whose effective date of membership is earlier
than thirty (30) days after the effective date of the filing of the
Certificate of Incorporation of the Foundation ("COI Effective Date") may
vote immediately after he or she becomes an Individual Member. Each
Individual Member whose effective date of membership is more than thirty
(30) days after the COI Effective Date shall be eligible to vote 180 days
after the effective date of his or her membership. Each Individual Member
shall have one vote at any meeting of Individual Members and for election of
the Individual Directors, the Individual Members shall have the option to
vote for Individual Directors on a cumulative basis.

>
> Unfortunately over time there will be more abuse and more large
> organizations participating in this arms races.
>

I can't see the Foundation not doing an exception again.

The foundation was launched Sept 19, 2012
<http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/09/19/openstack-foundation-launches/>
that would suggest an earliest election of March 18, 2013 if the
Foundation had immediately announced a cut-off for membership voting
for the 2013 elections -- which I don't recall ever seeing.

In the unlikely event the Foundation makes the bad tasting choose of
running elections using membership from prior to the foundation being
fully formed and without having announced membership cut-off for
voting, then assuming Sept 19, 2012 was the date of incorporation,
then the blog post
<http://www.openstack.org/blog/2012/07/join-the-openstack-foundation/>,
website, and other election communications should have include that
August 19, 2012 was the cut-off for voting in the first full year
elections in 2013.


On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Tim Bell <Tim.Bell@cern.ch> wrote:
> The first round of elections had a lower threshold for time you had to be
> registered (30 days). This round has 180 days from article 3.9. See the
> bylaw point below
> (http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/Bylaws#ARTICLE_IV._BOARD_OF
> _DIRECTORS).
>
> Thus, for the next individual elections for 2013, there does not appear to
> have been a significant surge in membership since the foundation launch from
> companies and therefore the membership will not be subject to a further arms
> race in the 2013 round.
>
> Tim
>
> 3.9 Voting and Proxies.
>
> (a) Each Individual Member whose effective date of membership is earlier
> than thirty (30) days after the effective date of the filing of the
> Certificate of Incorporation of the Foundation ("COI Effective Date") may
> vote immediately after he or she becomes an Individual Member. Each
> Individual Member whose effective date of membership is more than thirty
> (30) days after the COI Effective Date shall be eligible to vote 180 days
> after the effective date of his or her membership. Each Individual Member
> shall have one vote at any meeting of Individual Members and for election of
> the Individual Directors, the Individual Members shall have the option to
> vote for Individual Directors on a cumulative basis.
>
>>
>> Unfortunately over time there will be more abuse and more large
>> organizations participating in this arms races.

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Hi,

On 11/01/2012 02:39 PM, Carl Trieloff wrote:
> On 10/31/2012 03:36 PM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
>> Why do you say that? Are the people elected not the best possible
>> people? Have they failed (or why do you think they will fail)
>> representing the interests of Individual Members? Do you believe that
>> some of them will vote for the company before they vote for the project
>> and not do what's best for OpenStack?
>
> yes, I've seen it too many times before.
>
> In my view, contribution is your ticket to be able to vote &
> contribution is your ticket to be able to nominate someone.

Key is: do the people who are voting in the election have any
relationship with other people involved in the project (who are not from
their company)? If not, how could they do otherwise than vote for people
affiliated with their organisation? They have no means of voting for
anyone else.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
Community Action and Impact
Open Source and Standards, Red Hat
Ph: +33 9 50 71 55 62 / Cell: +33 6 77 01 92 13

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