Open Stack

On June 3, 2014, I participated in the tc meeting and presented a report
of the current status of election participation[0]. One of the items for
discussion was increasing the percentage of active technical
contributors who participate in the tc election. Several suggestions
arose, some of which were acted upon, including posting blog entries to
the openstack.org namespace to inform the electorate of tc
activities[1]. Thanks to Anne, Russell and Thierry for composing and
posting their blog entries. Thierry also blogged his analysis of the
April election[2].

I have a concern to which I would like to draw your attention and
hopefully get your feedback and guidance. At the same June 3 meeting an
agreement was reached, Action Item #4 in [0], "election officials to
call for questions at the same time they call for  self-nominations, and
curate a list of questions candidates will answer". I'm going to have to
take liberties with the timing of that in order for Tristan and I to
have time to curate and post questions for the candidates to have time
to compose answers but the spirit is plain, to open a call for questions
for tc candidates.

Here is my concern, this potentially has the outcome of being divisive.
Now at the time the idea was suggested and I did agree with the spirit
of it (to better inform the electorate of the purpose of the tc as well
as introduce them to candidates they may not know) I felt that the
elements that bring us together were strong enough to weather a bit of
divisiveness for the sake of trying a new direction to get our
participation percentage up. Now I hesitate. Lately I have been more
aware of those elements that separate us or try to draw us apart moreso
than those qualities I have felt for so long in that they bring us
together. My concern is that this well intended exercise may have
negative consequences and I wanted to share my perspective with you
prior to taking action.

If I am to open a call for questions I would have to do it tomorrow,
Friday Sept. 5, in order to have the questions open for a week and then
give Tristan and myself a week to curate a list and have them posted
with 2 weeks prior to the tc nomination period. A draft timetable
(without specific timestamps, just days) follows:
Sept. 5 - 11 - call for questions
Sept. 12 - 18 - election officials curate submitted questions
Sept. 19 - 25 (Friday-Thursday) PTL Nominations Open - questions for TC
candidates posted Sept. 19
Sept. 26 - Oct. 2 (Friday - Thursday) PTL Election
Oct. 3 - 9 (Friday - Thursday) TC Nominations Open - TC candidate
questions due end of day Oct. 9
Oct. 10 - 16 (Friday - Thursday) TC Election - TC candidate question
responses posted Oct. 10
This doesn't leave a lot of time for discussion and direction and I am
sorry for that, I had hoped I would feel a clear direction on this
without having to bother everyone during feature freeze week and I just
don't.

There is something else to consider.

Joe has recently posted a thread[3] to solicit ideas (tc members are
identified, but candidates I think would be welcome too) to identify
areas where we agree. Personally I think this is a direction which has a
greater chance of being a collaborative discussion and display of
co-operation which I think the community needs, as opposed to something
that could feel divisive. The email identifies September 10 as the
cutoff for ideas, followed by discussion, which I really think is an
exercise that deserves focus. It is possible that the objective for
which the tc candidate questions were designed to achieve, greater
awareness of the role of the tc and participation in the tc election,
could be achieved by Joe's initiative.

I welcome your thoughts.

Thank you,
Anita.

References:
[0] http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/tc/2014/tc.2014-06-03-20.03.html
[1] http://www.openstack.org/blog/category/governance/
[2]
http://fnords.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/analysis-of-april-2014-tc-election/
[3]
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-September/044766.html