[openstack-dev] [tc][election] TC candidacy

Doug Hellmann doug at doughellmann.com
Tue Oct 3 18:11:25 UTC 2017


I am announcing my candidacy for a position on the OpenStack Technical
Committee.

I started contributing to OpenStack in 2012, and I am currently
employed by Red Hat to work on OpenStack with a focus on long-term
project concerns.  I have served on the Technical Committee for the
last four years and as PTL of the Oslo and Release Management teams at
different points in the past. I won't repeat all of the information
about my history with the project (see last years nomination email if
you dont know me [1]).

Most recently I have been working with the Documentation team to
reorganize how we manage docs for OpenStack [2][3]. After more than
1200 reviews [4], we are well on our way to a healthy future.

Most of my contributions have been focused on enabling others in the
community.  From the documentation migration, to release automation,
and the community goals process, I have worked on tools, processes,
and patterns to make incremental improvements in our ability to
collaborate while building OpenStack. I view serving on the TC as an
extension of that work.

Earlier this year the TC met to work on our vision [5] for the future
of the TC. Two of the themes from the vision resonated with me
strongly: "Embracing Community Diversity" and "Growing New Leaders.

Most of our project teams have seen the effects of companies
refocusing or reducing their support of upstream development.  For the
community to thrive, we need to continue seeking new contributors. In
addition to looking at new companies, and new parts of our global
community, we need to encourage participation by more people who are
not spending significant amounts of their time on upstream work --
where OpenStack is not their full-time job. That will mean adjusting
the way we do code reviews, to place more emphasis on giving help
along with the usual review feedback. The reward for making this
cultural change will be more engagement with and contributions by our
users. I will be working on my ideas in this area through the First
Contact or Contributor Welcoming SIG [6].

The theme of finding new leaders is equally important. As Sean rightly
points out [7], the long term health of our community depends on our
ability to transition between leaders. We do this regularly in project
teams where the responsibilities are fairly well defined. We have
fewer people available to lead community-wide initiatives.  Regardless
of the outcome of the election, I will be working with the TC on
establishing a mentoring program for inter-project work to encourage
new people to step into community-wide leadership roles.

The OpenStack community is the most exciting and welcoming group I
have interacted with in more than 25 years of contributing to open
source projects. I look forward to continuing to be a part of the
community and serving the project.

Thank you,
Doug

Review history: https://review.openstack.org/#/q/reviewer:2472,n,z
Commit history: https://review.openstack.org/#/q/owner:2472,n,z
Foundation Profile: http://www.openstack.org/community/members/profile/359
Freenode: dhellmann
Website: https://doughellmann.com

[1] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2016-September/104643.html
[2] http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/docs-specs/specs/pike/os-manuals-migration.html
[3] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/507629/
[4] https://review.openstack.org/#/q/intopic:doc-migration
[5] https://governance.openstack.org/tc/resolutions/20170404-vision-2019.html
[6] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-sigs/2017-September/000084.html
[7] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-October/122979.html



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