Open Stack

Excerpts from Thierry Carrez's message of 2018-08-20 11:33:30 +0200:
> Chris Dent wrote:
> > In the discussion on a draft technical vision for OpenStack at
> > 
> >      https://review.openstack.org/#/c/592205/
> > 
> > there is a question about whether the TC is "responsible for the
> > mission and scope of OpenStack".
> > 
> > As the discussion there indicates, there is plenty of nuance, but
> > underlying it is a pretty fundamental question that seems important
> > to answer as we're going into yet another TC election period.
> > 
> > I've always assumed it was the case: the TC is an elected
> > representative body of the so-called active technical contributors
> > to OpenStack. So while the TC is not responsible for creating the
> > mission from whole cloth, they are responsible for representing the
> > goals of the people who elected them and thus for refining,
> > documenting and caring for the mission and scope while working with
> > all the other people invested in the community.
> > 
> > Does anyone disagree? If so, who is responsible if not the TC?
> 
> A few indications from the bylaws:
> 
> The TC manages "technical matters relating to the OpenStack Project".
> The "OpenStack project" is defined as "the released projects to enable 
> cloud computing and the associated library projects, gating projects, 
> and supporting projects".
> 
> The TC cooperates with the board to apply the OpenStack trademark : it 
> approves components for trademark programs inclusion, and the board 
> decides whether to apply it to those or not. In that sense, the TC is in 
> charge of the "scope" of "OpenStack", since it decides which components 
> may be added to things that bear the "OpenStack" name. But ultimately 
> the board is in charge of the trademark, and not apply it even to things 
> we deem in scope.
> 
> As far as the mission goes, the bylaws just indicate that the OpenStack 
> project is an "open source cloud computing project". Beyond that, we 
> have an official OpenStack mission statement. In the past, we ruled that 
> this statement was co-owned by the Board and the TC, and that changes to 
> it would need to pass *both* bodies.
> 
> So I think the answer is... The Board and the TC co-own the mission and 
> the scope of OpenStack. The TC is in charge of the technical side, 
> especially when it comes to implementation. The Board is in charge of 
> the trademark side (it ultimately owns what can be called "OpenStack").
> 

Thierry's description matches my understanding. The most recent
update to the mission statement (to add "users") was a joint effort
between the TC and Board.

As far as scope for new projects goes, we have said they "should
help further the OpenStack mission, by providing a cloud infrastructure
service, or directly building on an existing OpenStack infrastructure
service." [1]

I don't think there's any problem with writing down more detail
about what we mean by "should help further the OpenStack mission". If
anything, it gives us an opportunity to ensure that our interpretation
is aligned with the Board's.

Doug

[1] https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/new-projects-requirements.html