Open Stack

<linky version: https://anticdent.org/tc-report-48.html>

Due to the recent Summit in Sydney, related travel, and Thanksgiving,
it has been a while since I put a TC Report together. It is hard to
get back in the groove. Much of the recent discussion has either been
reflecting on Summit-initiated discussions or trying to integrate
results from those discussions into plans for the future.

#  Summit Reflections

A lot of my TC-related summit thinking is in a series of blog posts I
made last week. This isn't the "Chris promotes his blog report" but I
do think that these represent some important OpenStack issues, related
to stuff the TC talks about often, so here they are:

* [OpenStack Developer
   Satisfaction](https://anticdent.org/openstack-developer-satisfaction.html)
* [OpenStack Casual
   Contribution](https://anticdent.org/openstack-casual-contribution.html)
* [OpenStack Forum
   View](https://anticdent.org/openstack-forum-view.html)

Some other summit summaries that might be of interest:

* [Sydney OpenStack
   Summit](http://graham.hayes.ie/posts/sydney-openstack-summit/)
* [Sydney Summit Recap](https://blog.leafe.com/sydney-summit-recap/)
* [OpenStack Summit Sydney
   Recap](http://www.gazlene.net/sydney-summit.html)

Graham mentions a few things of interest from the joint leadership
meeting that happened the Sunday before summit:

* The potential expansion of the Foundation to include other projects,
   separate from OpenStack and with separate governance, to address the
   complexities of integrating all the pieces that get involved in
   doing stuff with clouds. OpenStack itself continues with its focus
   on the base infrastructure. There's a [press
   release](https://www.openstack.org/news/view/359/openstack-summit-sydney-spotlights-open-infrastructure-integration)
   with a bit more information, and it was talked about during the
   [keynote](https://www.openstack.org/videos/sydney-2017/tackling-the-biggest-challenge-in-open-source-integration).

* A somewhat bizarre presentation suggesting the Board and the TC
   manage the OpenStack roadmap. There wasn't time to actually discuss
   this as previous topics ran _way_ over, but at a superficial glance
   it appeared to involve a complete misunderstanding of not just how
   open source works in OpenStack, but how open source works in
   general.

# A Tech/Dev/? Blog

Throughout the past week there's been a lot of discussion of how to
address the desire for a blog that's been variously described as a "dev
blog" (news of what's going on with OpenStack development) or a "tech
blog" (a kind of "humble brag" about any cool (dev-related) stuff going
on, to remind people that OpenStack does interesting things).

On
[Thursday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-23.log.html#t2017-11-23T15:01:54)
there was talk about technology to use, differences of opinion on
what content should be present, and the extent to which curation should
be involved. If none, why not just carry on with
[planet](http://planet.openstack.org/)?

There was more on
[Monday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-27.log.html#t2017-11-27T14:41:02)
and then [an email
thread](http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-November/124902.html).

The eventual outcome is that the existing but rarely used [OpenStack
Blog](https://www.openstack.org/blog/) would make sense for this but
only if there were human involvement in choosing what content should be
present. An Acquisitions Editor was suggested. Josh Harlow was press
ganged, but it's not clear if the hook set.

# PTL Meeting (or tech leadership void filling)

Another topic on
[Thursday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-23.log.html#t2017-11-23T15:26:03)
was the notion of having some kind of formal process whereby project
roadmaps were more actively visible to other projects in the OpenStack
ecosystem. There's an
[etherpad](https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/ptl-meeting) started but
probably best to start with the log which also links to some twitter
discussion. A summary (common throughout all the discussion this past
week) is "maybe we should get people talking to each other more
often?"

The topic evolved and went what might look like two ways: how do we
address the perceived void of technical leadership and

> I think underlying all of this is that there are people in the
> commu[n]ity who are concerned that sometimes we have bad or at least
> not on the same page actors, and we have no mechanism for dealing
> with that.
> [_me_](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-23.log.html#t2017-11-23T15:44:48)

but to some extent that's part and parcel of the same thing.

# PTG Timing

Yet more on
[Thursday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-23.log.html#t2017-11-23T15:44:31):
initial discussion of how to divide up time and otherwise format
things at the forthcoming PTG in Dublin. There's further discussion 
on [an os-dev
thread](http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-November/124898.html).
Most people seem to be coming down in favor of sticking with what we
know.

# Project Goals

The Rocky cycle approaches, and that means it is time to start
thinking about
[goals](https://governance.openstack.org/tc/goals/index.html). 
Logs
[today](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-28.log.html#t2017-11-28T09:11:36)
for more on that. We are at the stage where candidate goals are being
sought. Meanwhile there's some discussion on how best to manage
tracking the goals. The current process can be somewhat noisy.

# Engaging with the Board

Another topic that happened throughout the week was reflection on the
difficulty engaging in full and inclusive conversation with the Board
at the leadership meeting. People who either won't or can't engage in
an interruption and interjection style of interaction are left out of
the discussion. Entry points into the log at
[Thursday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-23.log.html#t2017-11-23T16:05:10),
[Friday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-24.log.html#t2017-11-24T15:19:19),
[Monday](http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/irclogs/%23openstack-tc/%23openstack-tc.2017-11-27.log.html#t2017-11-27T15:02:24).

In the discussion there appear to be two different approaches or
attitudes in response to this problem. One is that the problems are
the result of too many people attending the meetings and that smaller
meetings could address the problems.

The other is that meeting formalisms and general rules of good
behavior are not being followed and that as it is important for the
entire TC to be engaged with the board, something ought to be done to
raise awareness that while people would like to participate the
current set up does not make that easy.

I'm in the latter camp. The TC is intentionally an elected body that is
fairly large, large enough for it to have a diversity of perspectives.
Whatever the base definitions are of "governance", being elected makes
the TC representatives of the people who elected them. The leadership
meetings are the one time when the TC gets to engage in an official
capacity with the Board and User Committee. We should do our best to
make sure that it is a setting where all representatives have an
opportunity to be present, hear, and be heard.

-- 
Chris Dent                      (⊙＿⊙')         https://anticdent.org/
freenode: cdent                                         tw: @anticdent