Open Stack

On 09/17/2018 01:31 PM, Doug Hellmann wrote:
> New Project Application Process
> ===============================
> 
> We wrapped up Sunday with a discussion of of our process for reviewing
> new project applications. Zane and Chris in particular felt the
> process for Adjutant was too painful for the project team because
> there was no way to know how long discussions might go on and now
> way for them to anticipate some of the issues they encountered.
> 
> We talked about formalizing a "coach" position to have someone from
> the TC (or broader community) work with the team to prepare their
> application with sufficient detail, seek feedback before voting
> starts, etc.
> 
> We also talked about adding a time limit to the process, so that
> teams at least have a rejection with feedback in a reasonable amount
> of time.  Some of the less contentious discussions have averaged
> from 1-4 months with a few more contentious cases taking as long
> as 10 months. We did not settle on a time frame during the meeting,
> so I expect this to be a topic for us to work out during the next
> term.

So, to summarize... the TC is back to almost exactly the same point it 
was at right before the Project Structure Reform happened in 2014-2015 
(that whole Big Tent thing).

The Project Structure Reform occurred because the TC could not make 
decisions on whether projects should join OpenStack using objective 
criteria, and due to this, new project applicants were forced to endure 
long waits and subjective "graduation" reviews that could change from 
one TC election cycle to the next.

The solution to this was to make an objective set of application 
criteria and remove the TC from the "Supreme Court of OpenStack" role 
that new applicants needed to come before and submit to the court's 
judgment.

Many people complained that the Project Structure Reform was the TC 
simply abrogating responsibility for being a judgmental body.

It seems that although we've now gotten rid of those objective criteria 
for project inclusion and gone back to the TC being a subjective 
judgmental body, that the TC is still not actually willing to pass 
judgment one way or the other on new project applicants.

Is this because it is still remarkably unclear what OpenStack actually 
*is* (the whole mission/scope thing)?

Or is this because TC members simply don't want to be the ones to say 
"No" to good-meaning people that may have an idea that is only 
tangentially related to cloud computing?

Everything old is new again.

Best,
-jay