Tag Archives: Election

Final OpenStack Voting Push, we’re still short [update: we made it]

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20121014-132246.jpgThere are still a LOT (more than 75%) of OpenStack community members who have not voted.  If you are in that number, please cast your ballot.

[NOTE 1/16: We made it!  OpenStack reach quorum at 7pm on Thursday – 20 hours before the polls close]

Have you voted and tired of these messages?  Your bylaws vote (yes or no) means nothing if we do not reach quorum.  So, contact your OpenStack friends and make sure they voted.

If you think you should have gotten a ballot, but can’t find it.  Please contact ‘secretary@openstack.org’ to check it out.

While inactive members have been removed from the system, there are some people whose ballots did not arrive (like mine) and had to ask for it to be resent.

PS: Yes, that is Niki Acosta with me in Boston.

 

OpenStack PSA: Individual members we need more help – Please Vote!

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1/17 Update: We did it!  We reached quorum and approved all the changes!  Also, I am honored to have been re-elected to the Board.  Thank you for the support.

I saw the latest report and we’ve still got a LONG WAY TO GO to get to the quorum that we need.  Don’t let your co-worker or co-contributor be the one missing vote!

Note: If you thing you should have gotten a ballot email but did not.  Contact the OpenStack Election Secretary for assistance.  OpenStack voting is via YOUR PERSONALIZED EMAIL only – you cannot use someone else’s ballot.

Here’s the official request that we’ve been forwarding in the community

OpenStack Individual Members we need your help – Please Vote!

Untitled drawingIncluded on the upcoming individual elections ballot is set of proposed bylaw changes [note: I am also seeking re-election]. To be enacted, these changes require approval by the individual members. At least 25% of the Individual Members must participate in this election in order for the vote to take effect which is why we are reaching out to you. The election will start Monday January 12, 2015 and run thru Friday January 16, 2015.

The unprecedented growth, community size and active nature of the OpenStack community have precipitated the need for OpenStack Bylaw updates. The updates will enable our community to adapt to our continued rapid growth, change and diversity, while reflecting our success and market leadership. Although the proposed changes only effect a small set of verbiage in the bylaws, the changes eliminate some of the hard coded values and naive initial assumptions that found their way into the bylaws when they were initially created in 2013. Those initial assumptions did not anticipate that by 2015 we would have such a large, active community of over 17,000 individual members, over 430 corporate members, and a large diverse set of OpenStack based products and services.

Through many months of community iterative discussion and debate, the DefCore team and board have unanimously accepted a set of changes that are now placed before you for your approval. The changes replace the original hard coded “core” definition with a process for determining the software elements required for use of the OpenStack commercial trademark. Processes which will also account for future revisions and determinations for Core and Trademark Policy.

Note: Another change sets the quorum level at a more reasonable 10%, so these PSAs should not be required in the future.

Complete details on the proposed changes are located at:
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Governance/Foundation/2014ProposedBylawsAmendment

Complete details on the 2015 Board Election are located at:
http://www.openstack.org/election/2015-individual-director-election/

Voting time for OpenStack! Your help needed to push Bylaws & DefCore forward.

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1/17 Update: We did it!  We reached quorum and approved all the changes!  Also, I am honored to have been re-elected to the Board.  Thank you for the support!

What does OpenStack mean to you?

Vote Now!To me, it’s more than infrastructure software: it’s a community of people and companies working together in revolutionary way.  To make that work, we need people who invest time to bring together diverse interests and perspectives.

I have worked hard to provide neutral and inclusive view points on the OpenStack board.  The critical initiatives I focused on [DefCore, Gold Membership, Product Managers] need focused leadership to progress.  I have proven my commitment to those efforts and would be honored to be re-elected [see my platforms for 2012, 2013 & 2014].

But more important than voting for me, is that we reach a 25% quorum!

Why?  Because there are critical changes to the OpenStack bylaws on the ballot.

What type of changes?  Basically, the changes allow OpenStack governance to keep up with the pace of our evolution.    These are pragmatic changes that have been thoroughly discussed in the community.  They enable OpenStack to:

  • set a smarter quorum – past elections only achieved half the required turn out to changes the bylaws
  • enable the DefCore process – current core is defined as simply using code in select projects.
  • improve governance of required committees
  • tweak release language to match current practice,

To hit 25%, we need everyone, not just the typical evangelists to encourage voting.  We need you to help spread the word and get others to do the same.

I’m counting on you, please help. 

OpenStack Board Elections: What I’ll do in 2014: DefCore, Ops, & Community

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Rob HirschfeldOpenStack Community,

The time has come for you to choose who will fill the eight community seats on the Board (ballot links went out Sunday evening CST).  I’ve had the privilege to serve you in that capacity for 16 months and would like to continue.  I have leadership role in Core Definition and want to continue that work.

Here are some of the reasons that I am a strong board member:

  • Proven & Active Leadership on Board – I have been very active and vocal representing the community on the Board.  In addition to my committed leadership in Core Definition, I have played important roles shaping the Gold Member grooming process and trying to adjust our election process.  I am an outspoken yet pragmatic voice for the community in board meetings.
  • Technical Leader but not on the TC – The Board needs members who are technical yet detached from the individual projects enough to represent outside and contrasting views.
  • Strong User Voice – As the senior OpenStack technologist at Dell, I have broad reach in Dell and RedHat partnership with exposure to a truly broad and deep part of the community.  This makes me highly accessible to a lot of people both in and entering the community.
  • Operations Leadership – Dell was an early leader in OpenStack Operations (via OpenCrowbar) and continues to advocate strongly for key readiness activities like upgrade and high availability.  In addition, I’ve led the effort to converge advanced cookbooks from the OpenCrowbar project into the OpenStack StackForge upstreams.  This is not a trivial effort but the right investment to make for our community.
  • And there’s more… you can read about my previous Board history in my 2012 and 2013 “why vote for me” posts or my general OpenStack comments.

And now a plea to vote for other candidates too!

I had hoped that we could change the election process to limit blind corporate affinity voting; however, the board was not able to make this change without a more complex set of bylaws changes.  Based on the diversity and size of OpenStack community, I hope that this issue may no longer be a concern.  Even so, I strongly believe that the best outcome for the OpenStack Board is to have voters look beyond corporate affiliation and consider a range of factors including business vs. technical balance, open source experience, community exposure, and ability to dedicate time to OpenStack.

OpenStack Board Voting Starts! Three thoughts about the board and election

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1/18 Note: I was re-elected! Thanks everyone for your support.

OpenStack Foundation members, I have three requests for you:

  1. vote (ballots went out by email already and expire on Friday)
  2. vote for me (details below)
  3. pick the board you want, not just the candidates.

And, of course, vote according to our code of conduct: “Members should not attempt to manipulate election results. Open debate is welcome, but vote trading, ballot stuffing and other forms of abuse are not acceptable.”

To vote, you must have been a member for 6 months. Going Mad Panda? Join right now so you can vote next time!

Even if you’re not a voter, you may find my comments useful in understanding OpenStack. Remember, these positions are my own: they do not reflect those of my employer (Dell).

Vote because it’s the strongest voice the community has about OpenStack governance

I’d strongly encourage you to commit code, come to the summit and participate in the lists and chats; however, voting is more. It shows measurable impact. It shows the vitality of the community.

OpenStack is exciting to me because it’s community driven.

I have been a strong and early leader in the community:

Vote for me because of my OpenStack Operations focus

My team at Dell has been laser focused on making OpenStack operable for over 2 years. My team acts like a lean start-up inside of Dell to get products out to market early.

We’ve worked with early operators and ground-breaking ecosystem partners (plus). We’ve helped many people get OpenStack running for real workloads. Consequently, I am highly accessible and accountable to a large number of users, operators and ecosystem vendors. Few other people in the OpenStack community have my breadth of exposure to real OpenStack deployments. My team and I have been dedicated, active participants in OpenStack long before Dell’s grand OpenStack strategy coalesced.

More importantly, I am committed to open source and open operations. The Apache 2 open source Crowbar project established the baseline (and served as the foundation) for other OpenStack deployment efforts. We don’t just talk about open source, we do open source: our team works in the open (my git account).

Vote for a board because diversity of views is important

OpenStack voting allows you to throw up to 8 votes to a single candidate. While you can put all your eggs into a single basket, I recommend considering a broader slate in voting.

We have an impressive and dedicated list of candidates who will do work for the community. I ask that you consider the board as a team. If you want operators, users, diversity, change, less corporate influence or any flavor of the above then think not just about the individual.

Why should I be part of your slate? I am not a blind cheerleader. I have voiced and driven community-focused positions about the board (dev cycle, grizzly >;; folsom, consensus).

One of my core activities has been to work on addressing community concerns about affinity voting. Gold and Platinum members have little incentive to address this issue. While I’d like to see faster action, it requires changing the by-laws. Any by-law changes need to be made carefully and they also require a vote of the electorate. If you want positive change, you need board members, like me, who are persistent and knowledgeable in board dynamics.

What have I done on the Board? Quite a bit…

It would be easy to get lost in a board of 24 members, but I have not. Armed with my previous board experience, I have been a vocal advocate for the community in board meetings without creating disruption or pulling us off topic.

Why re-elect me? For community & continuity

I am a strong and active board member and I work hard to represent all OpenStack constituents: developers, operators, users and ecosystem vendors.

Working on a board is a long-term exercise. Positions and actions I’ve taken today may take months to come to fruition. I would like the opportunity continue that work and see it through.

I am seeking your vote(s) for the OpenStack Board

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If registered, you have 8 votes to allocate as you wish.  You will get a link via email – you must use that link.

Joseph B George and I are cross-blogging this post because we are jointly seeking your vote(s) for individual member seats on the OpenStack Foundation board.  This is key point in the OpenStack journey and we strongly encourage eligible voters to participate no matter who you vote for!  As we have said before, success of the Foundation governance process matters just as much as the code because it ensures equal access and limits forking.

We think that OpenStack succeeds because it is collaboratively developed.  It is essential that we select board members who have a proven record of community development, a willingness to partner and have demonstrated investment in the project.

Our OpenStack vision favors production operations by being operator, user and ecosystem focused.  If elected, we will represent these interests by helping advance deployability, API specifications, open operations and both large and small scale cloud deployments.

Of the nominees, we best represent OpenStack users and operators (as opposed to developers).  We have the most diverse experience in real-world OpenStack deployments because our solution has been deployed broadly (both as Dell and through Crowbar.  We have a proven record of collaborating broadly with contributors, demonstrated skills at building the OpenStack community and doing real open source work to ensure that OpenStack is the most deployable cloud platform anywhere.

Let’s get specific about our leadership in the OpenStack project and community:

  • We have been active and vocal leaders in the OpenStack community
    • our team has established two very active user groups (Austin & Boston)
    • we have lead multiple world-wide deploy day events (March 2012  &  May 2012).
    • we have substantial experience in the field and know the challenges of running OpenStack for a wide variety of real-world deployments
    • our first solution came out on Cactus!  We’ve been delivering on Essex since OSCON 2012 (http://www.oscon.com/ ).
  • We represent a broad range of deployment scenarios ranging from hosting, government, healthcare, retail, education, media, financial and more!
  • We have broad engagements and partnerships at the infrastructure (SUSE, Canonical, Redhat), consulting (Canonical, Mirantis) and ecosystem layers (enStratus) and beyond!
  • We have a proven track record of collaboration instead of forking/disrupting – a critical skill for this project reflected by our consistent actions to preserve the integrity of the project.
  • We have led the “make OpenStack deployable” campaign with substantial investments (open source Crowbar, white papers, documentation & cookbooks.
  • We have very long and consistent history with the project starting even before the first OpenStack summit in Austin.

Of course, we’re asking for you to consider for both of us; however, if you want to focus on just one then here’s the balance between us.  Rob (bio) is a technologist with deep roots in cloud technology, data center operations and open source.  Joseph is a business professional with experience new product introduction and enterprise delivery.

Not sure if you can vote?  If you registered as an individual member then your name should be on the voting list.  In that case, you can vote between 8/20 and 8/24.