Open Stack

On 2015-08-14 10:52:55 +0100 (+0100), Chris Dent wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Aug 2015, Clint Byrum wrote:
> > 
> > The same is true for these bugs. Yes they're real, yes more orgs
> > should devote developers to fixing them.
> 
> This may be the root of my concern and something that we're going
> to have to address sooner than later.
[...]

Deserves its own thread, but basically anything that isn't directly
connected to writing more patches is subject to a tragedy of the
commons in our community. Member companies are happy to donate
developers to write more code (especially if it's in service of
implementing a driver for their proprietary hardware/software or a
feature they plan to leverage in some upcoming product), but we have
too few working on anything that supports the broader project much
less free software as a whole.

There are some companies (thank you!) whose management realize it's
to their benefit to make OpenStack successful by sponsoring or
nurturing talented contributors to work on fixing bugs in neglected
core code on some of our larger projects, reviewing changes across
the board rather than just those submitted by their coworkers,
contributing to efforts like documentation, quality assurance,
translation, security, coordinating releases, backporting to stable
branches, helping run and improve our community infrastructure...

In many cases contributors _want_ to be involved in these important
efforts, but are unable to convince their employers to allow them to
spend time working on part of OpenStack which doesn't directly serve
some product roadmap. Our foundation staff and board of directors
are well placed to put appropriate pressure on member companies who
have been favoring their own tactical contributions over strategic
work to benefit us all. Let them know when you see this happening.

    https://www.openstack.org/foundation/staff
    https://www.openstack.org/foundation/board-of-directors

-- 
Jeremy Stanley