Open Stack

Evans, Eileen wrote:
> Mark, thanks very much for driving the discussion around the proposed changes to the Bylaws.

Hi everyone,

The meeting yesterday revealed some misunderstanding about what
prerogatives the Technical Committee ("TC") is attached to, and which
ones it isn't attached to. To understand our position, we have to give
some historical perspective.

Before the Foundation was set up, the project was driven by a unique
board. It has had different names, ending with the Project Policy Board
("PPB"). The PPB was responsible for determining what projects were part
of "OpenStack", being released together every 6 months. We called that
set of projects "core".

When the Foundation was set up, we split the responsibilities of the PPB
into two entities. The TC would lead the technical aspects. The Board of
Directors (BoD) would lead everything else, especially where the name
"OpenStack" could be used (trademark usage).

This created a grey area around 'core'. It was two things: the projects
we decide, technically, to release together in an integrated fashion
every 6 months. But it was also the set of projects for which specific
trademark rules applied (right to call themselves OpenStack and/or
minimal set of projects you need to run to call your cloud "OpenStack").
One of those sets was clearly TC territory, the other was clearly BoD
territory, and yet we had the same name to describe both.

The "IncUp" effort was created to bring clarity in that grey area. That
joint committee decided to create two concepts. On one side, the
"integrated projects" that make up the "OpenStack release" every 6
months. This is totally under the responsibility of the TC. On the other
side, the "core", a subset of those integrated projects over which the
BoD wants to assert specific trademark rules. This shall be completely
under the responsibility of the BoD.

The benefit of that division is that it avoids one board to constantly
step on the toes of the other. The TC defines the "integrated release".
the BoD defines which subset of it is "Core".

Now the issue is, the current bylaws do not exactly support that
language, so they need to be revised. The proposed changes try to
preserve the place of the TC in determining "Core", which I think fails
to reach the intended clarification target.

The TC no longer needs to be involved in determining "Core", so there is
no need to preserve that in the bylaws. The TC can advise the BoD on the
technical side of DefCore, obviously, but in the end the BoD should
decide. The TC, however, still fully retains management "of the
technical matters relating to the OpenStack Project", and determines the
list of integrated projects, of which "core" is a subset. It might be
worth mentioning that.

I think that matches what happened with IncUp and what is currently
happening around DefCore. The TC helps, but the process is driven and
final decisions are made at the DefCore subcommittee level. As long as
the "integrated release" contents are solely decided by the TC (and core
is a subset of that), I think we are fine.

As a sidenote, it could be useful to clarify how integrated projects are
allowed to use the "OpenStack" name. We call the thing we release every
6 months "OpenStack". It's made of a set of integrated projects (decided
by the TC), it sounds logical that those subprojects can call themselves
OpenStack X. Maybe that could be a specific provision of the trademark
rules rather than the bylaws though.

I hope this clarifies the concerns we have with the proposed bylaws
changes. I think they fail to bring the much-needed clarification around
"core" and TC and BoD responsibilities, and try to preserve a TC right
that we've been hard at work abandoning.

Regards,

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)