Open Stack

On Wed, 2014-04-09 at 12:01 +0200, 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.

Excellent summary!

> 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.

Yes, this is getting a little lost in the more important issue about
defining the "what you need to include/implement in order to call your
cloud an OpenStack cloud".

We do not think that a project calling itself e.g. OpenStack
Orchestration implies that it should be required to be included in a
product that wants to use the OpenStack brand. These are orthogonal
questions.

Indeed this is what the TC asked the Board of Directors to approve here:

  https://github.com/openstack/governance/blob/master/resolutions/20131106-ceilometer-and-heat-official-names

So, Thierry makes a good point - this is a highly related issue which we
should be aiming to resolve here.

> 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.

I too hope this helps clear up the confusion. Thanks Thierry.

Mark.