Open Stack

On Sat, Apr 4, 2020 at 9:12 PM Ghanshyam Mann <gmann at ghanshyammann.com> wrote:
>
> This topic is a very important and critical area to solve in the OpenStack community.
> I personally feel and keep raising this issue wherever I get the opportunity.
>
> To develop or maintain any software, the very first thing we need is to have enough developer resources.
> Without enough developers (either open or closed source), none of the software can survive.
>
> OpenStack current situation on contributors is not the same as it was few years back.  Almost every
> project is facing the less contributor issue as compare to requirements and incoming requests. Few
> projects already dead or going to be if we do not solve the less contributors issue now.
>
> I know, TC is not directly responsible to solve this issue but we should do something or at least find
> the way who can solve this.

I'm not running for TC, but I figured I could chime in with some
thoughts, and maybe get TC candidates to react.

> What do you think about what role TC can play to solve this? What platform or entity can be used by TC to
> raise this issue? or any new crazy Idea?

To my knowledge, the vast majority of contributors to OpenStack are
corporate contributors - meaning, they contribute to the community
because it's their job. As companies have dropped out, the contributor
count has diminished. Therefore, the obvious solution to the
contributor dearth would be to recruit new companies that use or sell
OpenStack. However, as far as I know, Red Hat is the only company
remaining that still makes money from selling OpenStack as a product.
So if we're looking for new contributor companies, we would have to
look to those that use OpenStack, and try to make the case that it
makes sense for them to get involved in the community. I'm not sure
what this kind of advocacy would look like, or towards which
companies, or what kind of companies, it would be directed. Perhaps
the TC candidates could have suggestions here. And if I've made any
wrong assumptions, by all means correct me.

>
> -gmann
>