[Openstack] [Foundation Board] Resolutions from the Technical Committee

Zane Bitter zbitter at redhat.com
Fri Nov 15 18:22:53 UTC 2013


On 14/11/13 18:41, Jonathan Bryce wrote:
> To Mark’s earlier point, this is the relevant language in 4.1(b) (http://www.openstack.org/legal/bylaws-of-the-openstack-foundation/):
>
> "The other modules which are part of the OpenStack Project, but not the Core OpenStack Project may not be identified using the OpenStack trademark except when distributed with the Core OpenStack Project."
>
> In this sentence "distributed with the Core OpenStack Project" is another way of saying "distributed with the integrated release.” Since Heat and Ceilometer are part of the integrated release starting with Havana, as voted on by the TC, the projects (a.k.a. "modules") can be referred to with an OpenStack generic name, such as  "OpenStack Orchestration," without being added to the "Core" list. Other modules such as Devstack which are not distributed as part of the integrated release could not as they don’t meet the exception in the sentence above.

What about modules like Oslo, that are distributed with the integrated 
release? The by-laws go to all the trouble of explicitly creating a 
category for it (Library projects) to keep it out of Core, but you are 
saying that because Oslo is part of the integrated release there is 
effectively no distinction between it and Core. Does that mean that 
anybody building their own service using Oslo (a category that includes 
just about every Related project) can use the OpenStack trademark? That 
seems to be what you are saying.

Your reading seems to skip over the word "when", or rather to treat it 
as if it had the same meaning as "if".

A company providing, say, a standalone Neutron distribution can call it 
OpenStack Networking, because Neutron is Core. By my reading, another 
company providing a standalone Heat distribution could NOT call it 
OpenStack Orchestration, however, because we explicitly created the 
category of 'Integrated' projects to no other effect than to exclude 
Heat and Ceilometer from using the OpenStack trademark. Of course if a 
company distributed both Heat and Neutron then it _could_ call Heat 
OpenStack Orchestration because it is being distributed with Neutron, 
and Neutron is Core.

I'm glad to see that just about everyone recognises that this outcome 
was absurd. I don't believe it was intentional - it was down to a 
combination of folks who felt that "Core" ought to have some meaning in 
plain English in addition to the meaning that is defined in the by-laws 
and folks who erroneously believed that the by-laws require _all_ 
(rather than _any_) Core projects for trademark eligibility.

I'm pleased to see the TC correcting the mistake according to the 
apparent meaning of the by-laws. If the board feels that the by-laws 
don't actually mean what they say, then perhaps they should be amended 
to remove all of the meaningless "distinctions without a difference" - 
if your interpretation is the right one, the only two categories 
required are "Integrated" and "Official". Be careful, though: I'm pretty 
sure that library projects like Oslo are excluded for a good reason.

cheers,
Zane.

> To provide some context from the drafting process when this was written, the intent was to arrive at a set of modules explicitly approved by the Board as part of the Core OpenStack Project which would be useful for determining interop and commercial product and service trademark usage. This is along the lines of the “spider” work that has been going on. The exception in the sentence quoted above from 4.1(b) was to allow for an integrated release that included additional modules that the TC felt had the technical merit to be developed, released and distributed as part of the total set of OpenStack software, but that may not have the universal applicability of a module of the Core OpenStack Project that became a required component for commercial trademark use.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
> On Nov 14, 2013, at 11:01 AM, Boris Renski <brenski at mirantis.com> wrote:
>
>> In this case, statement by Mark below is inaccurate. Until BoD passes the resolution for Heat to call itself, "OpenStack Orchestration" (which I don't believe it has), Heat remains "an integrated project called Heat" and NOT "OpenStack Orchestration"
>>
>> Am I getting it right?
>>
>>
>>> *Can* the projects themselves use the word "OpenStack" such as
>>> "OpenStack Orchestration"? Answer: yes absolutely. This is already a
>>> done deal and we are already doing it in practice. And its covered
>>> under the bylaws once they are included in the integrated release by
>>> TC vote. There is no need for further action.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:56 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org> wrote:
>> Boris Renski wrote:
>>> None of this answers the question of "what is currently the difference
>>> between core and integrated." I agree with everything you said, but it
>>> sounds to me like *integrated* = *core* at this point.
>>
>> Well, no.
>>
>> "Integrated" is the list of projects we produce and release together
>> every 6 months. That's fully determined by the TC.
>>
>> "The Core OpenStack Project" as defined in the bylaws is the list of
>> projects that can call themselves "OpenStack X". The TC recommends that
>> it's the same as the list of integrated projects, but the BoD may decide
>> to exclude some of those (since the bylaws grant them that power).
>>
>> And then there are all the other fun use cases for the word "core".
>>
>> So while there is definitely a relation between "Integrated" and one of
>> the many use cases of the term "Core", I definitely wouldn't go as far
>> as saying *integrated* = *core* at this point.
>>
>> --
>> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>>
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>
>
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