Open Stack

On Jan 15, 2019, at 5:01 AM, Chris Dent <cdent+os at anticdent.org> wrote:
> 
> Then I implied that the TC cannot do anything like actionable and
> unified technical leadership because they have little to no real
> executive power and what power they do have (for example, trying to
> make openstack-wide goals) is in conflict (because of the limits of
> time and space) with the goals that PTLs (and others) are trying to
> enact.
> 
> Thus: What if the TC and PTLs were the same thing? Would it become
> more obvious that there's too much in play to make progress in a
> unified direction (on the thing called OpenStack), leading us to
> choose less to do, and choose more consistency and actionable
> leadership? And would it enable some power to execute on that
> leadership.

Early on in the development of OpenStack there was a lot of discussion about having a group of elected people act as a sort of BDFL (or, more properly, BDFT, where s/Life/Term). Remember, this was when there was Nova and Swift, and not much else. That approach was abandoned in favor of a more bottom-up approach, and as the number of projects and teams in OpenStack grew, so did the opinions on technical direction.

As a result, OpenStack has attracted the sort of people who tend to bristle at the notion of a leader or group of leaders determining technical policy and direction. I always have been and still continue to favor a unified direction for OpenStack as a whole, but I recognize that that ship sailed a long, long time ago, and that trying to add some of that back now would not sit well with most of the community. 


-- Ed Leafe