Open Stack

In a recent conversation on #openstack-tc where we bemoaned the ills
of Stackalytics and related management-by-objectives to Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle, the conversation (on 10-03, for example) veered
towards why people were interested in running for election to the
Technical Committee.

The observation was made that one motivation may be that an
individual's employer derives some benefit from having a member on the
technical committee. That would explain why some people (in the N-M,
the ones who don't get elected) do not remain actively involved in the
work of the TC if they are not elected. Some days later, I went and
eyeballed the people who have run for TC elections over the past four
cycles and then looked at what many of them did after the election, on
the mailing list, and on the governance repository, and I think there
is some truth to the observation.

I've never been elected to the TC, I have run for election several
times. Not winning the election has not in any way diminished my
desire or drive to participate in the governance of OpenStack. Not
winning has merely given me the (little more) luxury of not feeling so
bad if I don't make it to the TC meeting (RIP), or not making it to as
many of the office hours as I can. It has meant that I don't feel
compelled to attend the TC meeting that precedes the Summit, and where
possible I have made an effort to do so.

In my mind winning or not winning merely changes one thing; do you get
an actual vote that is counted towards a decision, on something that
is put before the TC.

Now, the question is this; does the vote really matter? I'm really
happy with one thing that the TC has done over the years I've known of
it; few (if any) decisions were actually made on a small margin of
votes. Whether you have a vote, or not, participation has always been
welcomed, and you get to say your piece. Never have I felt that not
having a vote has made my opinion second class in any way.

> If you are one of those (N-M) candidates, what then? What do you
> believe you can do if you are not elected to the TC, and what will you
> do? (concrete examples would be good)"

I will still attend the office hours, I will still give dims grief and
say that I preferred the regular TC meetings to office hours, I will
still make time to get involved in more activities like the SWG and in
the coming year if I have an opportunity to do that, I will. work to
revive the SWG as a SIG. All of these are things (including giving
dims a hard time) are things I've been doing already. I will continue
to live by the decisions of the TC and I will continue to work to make
OpenStack a better solution for me, a user of OpenStack.

> "If you are one of the M elected candidates, the N-M candidates who
> were not elected represent a resource?

One thing that I have suggested in the past was the notion of
alternates. For good reasons it was decided not to go this route but a
similar benefit could in fact be achieved if the TC was able to tap
these candidates to take on special projects, or drive specific
initiatives. It is here that the issue of time came up; would people
not elected be able to spare the time to do these kinds of things, and
would their employers permit them the time to do it. I submit to you
that while this is a reality, if in fact employers are not able to
permit people the time to do these kinds of things if not elected, I
submit to you that the motivations for running for election are flawed
in the first place.

Today, the responsibility to run too many of our "projects" are
falling back on members of the TC, I'm thinking of Doug, Sean, Monty,
... I would try and leverage the N-M if at all possible to make for a
stronger bench of leaders in the years to come.


-amrith



On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 2:17 PM, Paul Belanger <pabelanger at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 08:15:51AM -0400, Amrith Kumar wrote:
>> Full disclosure, I'm running for election as well. I intend to also
>> provide an answer to the question I pose here, one that I've posed
>> before on #openstack-tc in an office hours session.
>>
>> Question 1:
>>
>> "There are M open slots for the TC and there are N (>>M) candidates
>> for those open slots. This is a good problem to have, no doubt.
>> Choice, is a good thing, enthusiasm and participation are good things.
>>
>> But clearly, (N-M) candidates will not be elected.
>>
>> If you are one of those (N-M) candidates, what then? What do you
>> believe you can do if you are not elected to the TC, and what will you
>> do? (concrete examples would be good)"
>>
> ++
>
> I'd like to see (N-M) candidates continue with TC by helping support M.
> Personally, I plan on participating more in TC office hours regardless of
> results. Or even reach out to TC and ask what non-TC members could do to help TC
> more.
>
> Once thing I've noticed in the question period before elections was 'What more
> could the TC do'. I think it is also valid that we look at it the other way
> around as 'What more could the non-TC member do' like Amrith asks above.
>
>> Question 2:
>>
>> "If you are one of the M elected candidates, the N-M candidates who
>> were not elected represent a resource?
>>
>> Would you look to leverage/exploit that resource, and if so, how?
>> (concrete examples would be good)"
>>
> Yah, I'd love to see 'pair programming' style for TC and non-TC memeber. Clearly
> we have interested parties in becoming TC, and I would think the N-M candidates
> would also try running again in 6 months.  So why not help those N-M member
> become M, just like we do for non-core / core members on OpenStack projects.
>
>> -amrith
>>
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