Open Stack

I believe this is the voice we really need in the TC.
THANK YOU.

- Qiming

On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 11:47:12PM +0000, Jeremy Stanley wrote:
> I guess I'll send a copy of mine to the ML too, since all the cool
> kids seem to be doing it...
> 
> Most of you probably know me as "that short dude in the Hawaiian
> shirt and long hair." I'll answer to "Jeremy," "fungi" or even just
> "hey you." I'm starting my third cycle as PTL of the Infrastructure
> team, and have been a core reviewer and root sysadmin for
> OpenStack's community-maintained project infrastructure for the past
> four years. I've also been doing vulnerability management in
> OpenStack for almost as long, chaired conference tracks, and given
> talks to other communities on a variety of OpenStack-related topics.
> I help with elections, attend and participate in TC meetings and
> review proposed changes to governance. I have consistent, strong
> views in favor of free software and open/transparent community
> process.
> 
>     https://wiki.openstack.org/user:fungi
> 
> I see OpenStack not as software, but as a community of people who
> come together to build something for the common good. We've been
> fortunate enough to experience a bubble of corporate interest which
> has provided amazing initial momentum in the form of able software
> developers and generous funding, but that can't last forever. As
> time goes on, we will need to rely increasingly on effort from
> people who contribute to OpenStack because it interests them, rather
> than because some company is paying them to do so. The way I see it,
> we should be preparing now for the future of our project:
> independent, volunteer contributors drawn from the global free
> software community. However, we're not succeeding in attracting them
> the way some other projects do, which brings me to a major
> concern...
> 
> OpenStack has a public relations problem we need to solve, and soon.
> I know I'm not the only one who struggles to convince contributors
> in other communities that we're really like them, writing free
> software under transparent processes open to any who wish to help.
> This skepticism comes from many sources, some overt (like our
> massive trade conferences and marketing budget) while others
> seemingly inconsequential (such as our constant influx of new
> community members who are unfamiliar with free software concepts and
> lack traditional netiquette). Overcoming this not-really-free
> perception is something we absolutely must do to be able to attract
> the unaffiliated volunteers who will continue to maintain OpenStack
> through the eventual loss of our current benefactors and well into
> stabilization.
> 
> Prior to OpenStack, I worked for longer than I care to remember as
> an "operator" at Internet service, hosting and telecommunications
> providers doing Unix systems administration, network engineering,
> virtualization and information security. When I first started my
> career, you couldn't be a capable systems administrator without a
> firm grasp of programming fundamentals and couldn't be a good
> programmer without understanding the basics of systems
> administration. I'm relieved that, after many years of companies
> trying to tell us otherwise, our industry as a whole is finally
> coming back around to the same realization. Similarly, I don't
> believe we as a community benefit by socializing a separation of
> "operators" from "developers" and feel the role distinction many
> attempt to strike between the two is at best vague, while at its
> worst completely alienating a potential source of current and future
> contributions.
> 
> What causes software to succeed in the long run is not hype,
> limitless funding or even technical superiority, it's the size and
> connectedness of its community of volunteers and users who invest
> themselves and their personal time. The work we're doing now is
> great, don't get me wrong, but for it to survive into the next
> decade and beyond we need to focus more on building a close-knit
> community of interested contributors even if it's not in the best
> interests of industry pundits or vendor product roadmaps.
> 
> OpenStack is people. If we lose sight of that, it's over.
> -- 
> Jeremy Stanley