Open Stack

On 4/05/19 9:25 AM, Emmet Hikory wrote:
> Zhipeng Huang wrote:
>> Then it might fit the purpose to rename the technical committee to
>> governance committee or other terms. If we have a technical committee not
>> investing time to lead in technical evolvement of OpenStack, it just seems
>> odd to me.
> 
>      OpenStack has a rich governance structure, including at least the
> Foundation Board, the User Committee, and the Technical Committee.  Within
> the context of governance, the Technical Committee is responsible for both
> technical governance of OpenStack and governance of the technical community.
> It is within that context that "Technical Committee" is the name.
> 
>      I also agree that it is important that members of the Technical Committee
> are able to invest time to lead in the technical evolution of OpenStack, and
> this is a significant reason that I propose that the activities of the TC be
> restricted, precisely so that being elected does not mean that one no longer
> is able to invest time for this.

Could you be more clear about which activities you think should be 
restricted? Presumably you're arguing that there should be fewer... 
let's call it "ex officio" responsibilities to being a TC member.

The suggestion reads as kind of circular, because you appear to be 
saying that aspiring TC members should be doing certain kinds of 
socially useful tasks that are likely to get them elected to the TC, 
where they will be restricted from doing those tasks in order to make 
sure they have free time to do the kinds of socially useful things they 
were doing prior to getting elected to the TC, except that those are now 
restricted for them. Presumably we're actually talking about different 
sets of tasks there, but I don't think we can break the loop without 
being explicit about what they are.

>> TC should be a place good developers aspired to, not retired to. BTW this
>> is not a OpenStack-only issue but I see across multiple open source
>> communities.
> 
>      While I agree that it is valuable to have a target for the aspirations
> of good developers, I am not convinced that OpenStack can be healthy if we
> restrict our aspirations to nine seats. 

Good news, we have 13 seats ;)

> From my perspective, this causes
> enough competition that many excellent folk may never be elected, and that
> some who wish to see their aspirations fufilled may focus activity in other
> communities where it may be easier to achieve an arbitrary title.
> 
>      Instead, I suggest that developers should aspire to be leaders in the
> OpenStack comunuity, and be actively involved in determining the future
> technical direction of OpenStack.  I just don't think there needs to be
> any correlation between this and the mechanics of reviewing changes to the
> governance repository.

I couldn't agree more that we want as many people as possible to be 
leaders in the community and not wait to be elected to something.
That said, in my personal experience, people just... listen more (for 
better and worse) to you when you're a TC member, because the election 
provides social proof that other people are listening to you too. This 
phenomenon seems unavoidable unless you create separate bodies for 
technical direction and governance (which I suspect has its own 
problems, like a tendency for the governance body to become dominated by 
professional managers).

cheers,
Zane.