Mailing List Archive: OpenStack: Foundation

is 'strategic' the right name? (was Re: Foundation Structure: An Alternative)

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stefano at openstack

Mar 9, 2012, 3:45 PM

Post #1 of 4 (230 views)
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is 'strategic' the right name? (was Re: Foundation Structure: An Alternative)

On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 16:27 -0600, Mark Collier wrote:
> Associate Member category, [...]
> Strategic Member [...]

I wonder if calling 'Strategic' members that basically only have more
money but the same responsibilities and rights of other members is
really the best thing to do. It made sense when we had only two kinds
(corporate and individuals) and corporate members where called to put
money down to create the foundation. That was a strategic role.

Now we have two corporate citizens, startup and small companies with
large established corporations, both equally strategic to the success of
the initiative. And we have individuals, too.

Would it make sense to spend some time and think about a different name
for the levels of corporate participation to the foundation?

/stef

dave at neary-consulting

Mar 13, 2012, 3:37 AM

Post #2 of 4 (218 views)
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is 'strategic' the right name? (was Re: Foundation Structure: An Alternative) [In reply to]

Hi,

On 03/09/2012 11:45 PM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 16:27 -0600, Mark Collier wrote:
>> Associate Member category, [...]
>> Strategic Member [...]
>
> I wonder if calling 'Strategic' members that basically only have more
> money but the same responsibilities and rights of other members is
> really the best thing to do. It made sense when we had only two kinds
> (corporate and individuals) and corporate members where called to put
> money down to create the foundation. That was a strategic role.

I agree with you Stefano. I suggested moving away from "strategic
members" as a name previously, because it includes an implicit value
judgement - "OpenStack is important to these people (and, by
implication, not so much to others)" - I don't know whether there is a
specific reason for sticking with that label rather than something like
gold/platinum member, which other organisations use.

Incidentally, I still think that starting from the question "what will
the foundation do, and how much will that cost?" is useful, and will
help resolve some of the questions around the composition of the board.

My suggestion is to start by drawing up a charter of the foundation
describing its scope, and a job description/budget for an executive
director. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to say "The foundation
will have 6 full time resources, working on X, Y and Z" before you have
an executive director in place - that person would then, ideally, put
together a budget proposal and recs for hires of the people they would
need to accomplish the foundation's mission - and such a proposal would
need approval by the board.

As one example: the OuterCurve Foundation has 2 full time employees (an
executive director and a technical director) and outsources all of their
administrative, legal, financial and marketing services. They're
basically spending the equivalent of one full-time person for 4
different functions. When they have a longer-term need, and the budget
to pay for it, they will hire people in at that point.

On the board size issue, I'll once again point people to the Linux
Foundation's solution to the problem: a number of seats per membership
level, including some seats named from the TAB and elected by individual
members. This gives individual members some (representative) oversight
into the financial running of the foundation, and importantly, a voice
at the table for strategic decisions which could affect the Linux
developer community, but honestly, the running of the Linux Foundation
affects very little the running of the kernel project (except when they
decide to hire kernel hackers as "fellows").

I do understand what Joshua is saying - it would not be good to have Big
Players who get to railroad all the strategic decisions of the
foundation and potentially (a) take the foundation in a direction which
is not what the technical contributors want, essentially making it
irrelevant, or (b) having excessive influence on the direction of the
member projects with potentially damaging results. What I suggested was
a model based on 3 thirds: the Big Guys pay money and get a guaranteed
board seat, the next level down pay less money and run elections for a
third of the board seats, and individual members (by whatever criteria
is judged appropriate) elect another third of the board. That seems to
address most of the concerns.

In terms of the level playing field, I'd suggest that the board
shouldn't be on the field in the first place. But I know that a number
of people think that's idealistic of me :)

One thing I would like to say is that having in-person meetings to
resolve debates like this is a Very Bad Idea. That is one way that the
organisation end up leaning towards the big members who can send someone
to such meetings at short notice or a small constituency of people who
live in the same geographic area. It might take longer and be more
painful, but I'd urge you to keep the debate online - and even to avoid
real-time debate where possible.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
Dave Neary
Neary Consulting - http://www.neary-consulting.com
Tel: +33 982 382 735
Cell: +33 677 019 213

aclark at suse

Mar 13, 2012, 1:51 PM

Post #3 of 4 (217 views)
Permalink

is 'strategic' the right name? (was Re: Foundation Structure: An Alternative) [In reply to]

>>> On 3/13/2012 at 04:37 AM, Dave Neary <dave at neary-consulting.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 03/09/2012 11:45 PM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
>> On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 16:27 -0600, Mark Collier wrote:
>>> Associate Member category, [...]
>>> Strategic Member [...]
>>
>> I wonder if calling 'Strategic' members that basically only have more
>> money but the same responsibilities and rights of other members is
>> really the best thing to do. It made sense when we had only two kinds
>> (corporate and individuals) and corporate members where called to put
>> money down to create the foundation. That was a strategic role.
>
> I agree with you Stefano. I suggested moving away from "strategic
> members" as a name previously, because it includes an implicit value
> judgement - "OpenStack is important to these people (and, by
> implication, not so much to others)" - I don't know whether there is a
> specific reason for sticking with that label rather than something like
> gold/platinum member, which other organisations use.
>
>
> Incidentally, I still think that starting from the question "what will
> the foundation do, and how much will that cost?" is useful, and will
> help resolve some of the questions around the composition of the board.
>
> My suggestion is to start by drawing up a charter of the foundation
> describing its scope, and a job description/budget for an executive
> director. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to say "The foundation
> will have 6 full time resources, working on X, Y and Z" before you have
> an executive director in place - that person would then, ideally, put
> together a budget proposal and recs for hires of the people they would
> need to accomplish the foundation's mission - and such a proposal would
> need approval by the board.
>
> As one example: the OuterCurve Foundation has 2 full time employees (an
> executive director and a technical director) and outsources all of their
> administrative, legal, financial and marketing services. They're
> basically spending the equivalent of one full-time person for 4
> different functions. When they have a longer-term need, and the budget
> to pay for it, they will hire people in at that point.
>
>
> On the board size issue, I'll once again point people to the Linux
> Foundation's solution to the problem: a number of seats per membership
> level, including some seats named from the TAB and elected by individual
> members. This gives individual members some (representative) oversight
> into the financial running of the foundation, and importantly, a voice
> at the table for strategic decisions which could affect the Linux
> developer community, but honestly, the running of the Linux Foundation
> affects very little the running of the kernel project (except when they
> decide to hire kernel hackers as "fellows").

I agree with the Point that Dave is making here, but do want to clarify a bit and draw out an additional point. One of the LF Board seats is for a representative of the TAB. That representative is elected by a vote amongst all invitees of the Linux Kernel Summit, many of which are not necessarily individual members of the Linux Foundation. The TAB representative on the LF board is a vital member of the board as that person represents the key contributors to the Linux Kernel; which provides ties directly back to the mission of the LF. Having such a representative on the board has proven extremely valuable over the years to provide direct insight into the needs of the community, rich communication channels, the ability to build a high degree of trust between the open source community and the LF, the ability to react quickly to community needs.

As discussion continues for the makeup of the OpenStack board, I would suggest that a similar inclusion is warranted. I'm not as sure where that representative should come from, perhaps the Technical Council, but I do believe that such a representative is needed.

regards,
AlanClark

>
> I do understand what Joshua is saying - it would not be good to have Big
> Players who get to railroad all the strategic decisions of the
> foundation and potentially (a) take the foundation in a direction which
> is not what the technical contributors want, essentially making it
> irrelevant, or (b) having excessive influence on the direction of the
> member projects with potentially damaging results. What I suggested was
> a model based on 3 thirds: the Big Guys pay money and get a guaranteed
> board seat, the next level down pay less money and run elections for a
> third of the board seats, and individual members (by whatever criteria
> is judged appropriate) elect another third of the board. That seems to
> address most of the concerns.
>
> In terms of the level playing field, I'd suggest that the board
> shouldn't be on the field in the first place. But I know that a number
> of people think that's idealistic of me :)
>
>
> One thing I would like to say is that having in-person meetings to
> resolve debates like this is a Very Bad Idea. That is one way that the
> organisation end up leaning towards the big members who can send someone
> to such meetings at short notice or a small constituency of people who
> live in the same geographic area. It might take longer and be more
> painful, but I'd urge you to keep the debate online - and even to avoid
> real-time debate where possible.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Dave.

aclark at suse

Mar 13, 2012, 2:44 PM

Post #4 of 4 (215 views)
Permalink

is 'strategic' the right name? (was Re: Foundation Structure: An Alternative) [In reply to]

>>> On 3/13/2012 at 02:51 PM, "Alan Clark" <aclark at suse.com> wrote:

>
>>>> On 3/13/2012 at 04:37 AM, Dave Neary <dave at neary-consulting.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 03/09/2012 11:45 PM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2012-03-09 at 16:27 -0600, Mark Collier wrote:
>>>> Associate Member category, [...]
>>>> Strategic Member [...]
>>>
>>> I wonder if calling 'Strategic' members that basically only have more
>>> money but the same responsibilities and rights of other members is
>>> really the best thing to do. It made sense when we had only two kinds
>>> (corporate and individuals) and corporate members where called to put
>>> money down to create the foundation. That was a strategic role.
>>
>> I agree with you Stefano. I suggested moving away from "strategic
>> members" as a name previously, because it includes an implicit value
>> judgement - "OpenStack is important to these people (and, by
>> implication, not so much to others)" - I don't know whether there is a
>> specific reason for sticking with that label rather than something like
>> gold/platinum member, which other organisations use.
>>
>>
>> Incidentally, I still think that starting from the question "what will
>> the foundation do, and how much will that cost?" is useful, and will
>> help resolve some of the questions around the composition of the board.
>>
>> My suggestion is to start by drawing up a charter of the foundation
>> describing its scope, and a job description/budget for an executive
>> director. In my opinion, it doesn't make sense to say "The foundation
>> will have 6 full time resources, working on X, Y and Z" before you have
>> an executive director in place - that person would then, ideally, put
>> together a budget proposal and recs for hires of the people they would
>> need to accomplish the foundation's mission - and such a proposal would
>> need approval by the board.
>>
>> As one example: the OuterCurve Foundation has 2 full time employees (an
>> executive director and a technical director) and outsources all of their
>> administrative, legal, financial and marketing services. They're
>> basically spending the equivalent of one full-time person for 4
>> different functions. When they have a longer-term need, and the budget
>> to pay for it, they will hire people in at that point.
>>
>>
>> On the board size issue, I'll once again point people to the Linux
>> Foundation's solution to the problem: a number of seats per membership
>> level, including some seats named from the TAB and elected by individual
>> members. This gives individual members some (representative) oversight
>> into the financial running of the foundation, and importantly, a voice
>> at the table for strategic decisions which could affect the Linux
>> developer community, but honestly, the running of the Linux Foundation
>> affects very little the running of the kernel project (except when they
>> decide to hire kernel hackers as "fellows").
>
> I agree with the Point that Dave is making here, but do want to clarify a
> bit and draw out an additional point. One of the LF Board seats is for a
> representative of the TAB. That representative is elected by a vote amongst
> all invitees of the Linux Kernel Summit, many of which are not necessarily
> individual members of the Linux Foundation. The TAB representative on the LF
> board is a vital member of the board as that person represents the key
> contributors to the Linux Kernel; which provides ties directly back to the
> mission of the LF. Having such a representative on the board has proven
> extremely valuable over the years to provide direct insight into the needs of
> the community, rich communication channels, the ability to build a high
> degree of trust between the open source community and the LF, the ability to
> react quickly to community needs.
>
> As discussion continues for the makeup of the OpenStack board, I would
> suggest that a similar inclusion is warranted. I'm not as sure where that
> representative should come from, perhaps the Technical Council, but I do
> believe that such a representative is needed.
>

On today's call, Jonathan clarified for me that all contributors will be part of the individual members class. The individual member class has seats on the board, so my point is covered!

> regards,
> AlanClark
>
>>
>> I do understand what Joshua is saying - it would not be good to have Big
>> Players who get to railroad all the strategic decisions of the
>> foundation and potentially (a) take the foundation in a direction which
>> is not what the technical contributors want, essentially making it
>> irrelevant, or (b) having excessive influence on the direction of the
>> member projects with potentially damaging results. What I suggested was
>> a model based on 3 thirds: the Big Guys pay money and get a guaranteed
>> board seat, the next level down pay less money and run elections for a
>> third of the board seats, and individual members (by whatever criteria
>> is judged appropriate) elect another third of the board. That seems to
>> address most of the concerns.
>>
>> In terms of the level playing field, I'd suggest that the board
>> shouldn't be on the field in the first place. But I know that a number
>> of people think that's idealistic of me :)
>>
>>
>> One thing I would like to say is that having in-person meetings to
>> resolve debates like this is a Very Bad Idea. That is one way that the
>> organisation end up leaning towards the big members who can send someone
>> to such meetings at short notice or a small constituency of people who
>> live in the same geographic area. It might take longer and be more
>> painful, but I'd urge you to keep the debate online - and even to avoid
>> real-time debate where possible.
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foundation mailing list
> Foundation at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foundation

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