Open Stack

Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> On Tue, 2014-06-10 at 16:09 +0100, Duncan Thomas wrote:
>> On 10 June 2014 15:07, Mark McLoughlin <markmc at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Exposing which configurations are actively "tested" is a perfectly sane
>>> thing to do. I don't see why you think calling this "certification" is
>>> necessary to achieve your goals.
>>
>> What is certification except a formal way of saying 'we tested it'? At
>> least when you test it enough to have some degree of confidence in
>> your testing.
>>
>> That's *exactly* what certification means.
> 
> I disagree. I think the word has substantially more connotations than
> simply "this has been tested".
> 
> http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-June/036963.html

I agree with Mark (and Anita's original rationale) that the "certified"
term conveys a level of guarantee we, as an open source project, can't
really back. Using softer terminology ("tested", "CI tested"...) is
therefore preferable.

I also don't buy the argument that "others" would abuse that terminology
if we didn't occupy it ourselves. The only body that could efficiently
"certify" would be the Board of Directors of the OpenStack Foundation,
setting up some official certification program backed with the trademark
usage. Anyone else would just "certify" under their own, independent,
non-OpenStack program. I don't think us using that terminology would
prevent them from doing that anyway. As long as the board makes sure the
trademark is not abused in such 3rd-party "certification" programs, I
think we are ok...

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)