Open Stack

On 01/27/2015 06:05 PM, Jonathan Bryce wrote:
> 
>> On Jan 27, 2015, at 3:50 PM, Monty Taylor <mordred at inaugust.com> wrote:
>>
>> I do not like how we are selecting names for our releases right now.
>> The current process is autocratic and opaque and not fun - which is the
>> exact opposite of what a community selected name should be.
> 
> Autocratic? Could you elaborate?

Right now we're starting from a set list of pre-approved names that
there was absolutely no participation in the selection of and about
which discussion is summarily shut down. I know it's with the best of
intentions, but it's not ok.

>> I propose:
>>
>> * As soon as development starts on release X, we open the voting for the
>> name of release X+1 (we're working on Kilo now, we should have known the
>> name of L at the K summit)
>>
>> * Anyone can nominate a name - although we do suggest that something at
>> least related to the location of the associated summit would be nice
>>
>> * We condorcet vote on the entire list of nominated names
>>
>> * After we have the winning list, the foundation trademark checks the name
>>
>> * If there is a trademark issue (and only a trademark issue - not a
>> "marketing doesn't like the name" issue) we'll move down to the next
>> name on the list
>>
>> If we cannot have this process be completely open and democratic, then
>> what the heck is the point of having our massive meritocracy in the
>> first place? There's a lot of overhead we deal with by being a
>> leaderless collective you know - we should occasionally get to have fun
>> with it.
> 
> 
> If your goal is to actually involve our massive meritocracy, I’d suggest expanding this thread to include at least the community marketing mailing list rather than just the -dev mailing list (possibly also the Foundation mailing list?). The release names are some of our most prominent brands, meaning choosing them is by definition a marketing activity. Not including the part of our meritocracy with experience in branding and marketing feels counterintuitive to me (again if the goal is actually to be meritocratic).

I was under the impression that the human names were "development
codenames" and also this was a topic of discussion at the TC meeting
today, which is why I popped it to the dev list - no slight or exclusion
was intended! I have cross-posted this reply to
foundation at lists.openstack.org and marketing at lists.openstack.org.

You'll notice that I did say in my suggestion that ANYONE should be able
to propose a name - I believe that would include non-dev people. Since
the people in question are marketing people, I would imagine that if any
of them feel strongly about a name, that it should be trivial for them
to make their case in a persuasive way.

I'm not willing to cede that choosing the name is by definition a
marketing activity - and in fact the sense that such a position was
developing is precisely why I think it's time to get this sorted. I
think the dev community feels quite a bit of ownership on this topic and
I would like to keep it that way.

Thanks!
Monty