Open Stack

On 04/09/2014 07:14 AM, Russell Bryant wrote:
> On 04/09/2014 06:01 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>> 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.
Thierry,

Solving this point would be of beneficial importance to a variety of 
upstream and downstream activity.  In upstream using Heat as an example, 
we generally refer to everything as "OpenStack Heat".  In downstream 
(Red Hat specifically) we use the term OpenStack Heat all the time.  My 
general take on this is it is better to ask forgiveness then permission, 
but I'd really like to continue using this nomenclature.  I would hate 
to see an outcome, where for example, we could no longer use the 
reference OpenStack Heat, and this behavior was enforced by the TC/BOD.

It seems to me that the trademark usage around when an operator may 
declare their cloud "OpenStack" is a bit orthogonal to the trademark 
usage around when a project may associate with OpenStack by referencing 
their project as "Openstack X".  Again, not a legal expert, so ymmv :)

Regards
-steve


>> 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.
> This is an excellent write-up, Thierry!
>
> FWIW, I completely agree with everything stated, including the parts
> about which responsibilities the TC would like to retain and abandon.
>