Hi everyone,

The size of the TC is a trade-off between getting enough community
representation and keeping enough members engaged and active. The
current size (13 members) was defined by in 2013, as we moved from 5
directly-elected seats + all PTLs (which would have been 14 people) to a
model that could better cope with our explosive growth. Since then, 13
has worked well, to ensure that new blood could come in at every cycle.

I would argue that today, there are far less need to get wide
representation in the TC (we are pretty aligned), and less difficulty to
enter the TC (there is more turnover). In 2019 OpenStack, 13 members is
a rather large group. It is becoming difficult to find 13 people able to
commit to a significant amount of time over the coming year. And it is
difficult to keep all those 13 members active and engaged.

IMHO it is time to reduce the TC to 11 members, which sounds like a more
reasonable and manageable size. We should encourage people to stop for a
while and come back, rather than burn too many people at the same time.
We should encourage more people to watch from the sidelines, rather than
have a group so large that everyone that can be in it is in it.

This would not be a big-bang change, just something we would gradually
put in place over the next year. My strawman plan would be as follows:

- Sept. 2019 election: no change, elect 6 seats as planned
- Feb. 2020 election: elect 6 seats instead of 7
- Sept. 2020 election: elect 5 seats instead of 6
- Then elect 6 seats at every start-of-year and 5 at every end-of-year

That would result in TC membership sizes:

- U cycle (Q4 2019/Q1 2020): 13 members
- V cycle (Q2/Q3 2020): 12 members
- W cycle (Q4 2020/Q1 2021): 11 members
- after that: 11 members

FWIW, I intend to not run for reelection in the Feb 2020 election, so
nobody else has to sacrifice their seat to that reform for that election :)

Thoughts?

--
Thierry Carrez (ttx)