[Advisors] Updates and Next Steps

[Jim Jagielski]

Hi David! ;)

Just some inline comments... please note, these are my comments and
not necessarily those Gluster or JMW.

On Dec 18, 2012, at 1:48 PM, David Nalley <David.Nalley at citrix.com> wrote:

> My apologies for slow feedback. Even this is incomplete, but I needed to get something out rather than let it dwindle as a draft. 
> 
> So  a couple of side comments - Apache and Eclipse are very different open source orgs (as is oVirt). I understand some of the attraction to the Eclipse model, but the mixing and matching causes some concern. Each of those foundations has been successful in its own right, can you tell us why not copy one or the other? 
> 

We are trying to copy oVirt as much as possible, but "fill in the
holes" (as it were) by leveraging Apache mechanisms... This is
because after we created oVirt, we realized that there were
some actions and procedures that were either not well
defined (or defined at all!) or not really suited to what we
wanted to implement. That's the reason for the mix you see.

> Members: 
> So this is somewhat confusing to me. So plenty of assumptions here on my part - it appears that we are setting the stage for the Gluster Software Foundation  - there will be multiple projects within the 'GSF'. What isn't clear is how membership is handled across those groups, there is talk about different standards being set within the group once a project is large enough. So I guess a point of clarification - are you a member of the 'Gluster Project' - or are you a member of Gluster sub-projects? or?? 
> 

Some of this is murky on purpose: we want to empower the Gluster
*community* to answer these kinds of questions. The feeling is
that if we define everything, then there's little for the
nascent community to do, which will drastically impact uptake.

> Unwritten things: 
> So there is plenty of talk about the responsibilities, and making the board more active. But there doesn't seem to be much about the authority of the board. Where does authority end and begin? 

Ideally, the board exists to enforce a neutral, well-run project... It
does not, and should not, make technical decisions, or anything else
related to the development or "business" aspects of the project
and codebase. It's there to ensure collaboration and consensus-
based operations.

Also, at the start, the board is there to be a wellspring of
experience, knowledge and insight. Think of at least some members
of the board as "midwives", helping the birth of the community.

> 
> There are no officers defined - not necessarily a problem, but…..
> 
> So not to call out the 800lb Gorilla in the room - but there is zero mention in the governance document or this email of the relationship to Red Hat. 
> Is the project completely free from RHT strings? Is it truly independent? Is there to be a legal entity holding various pieces of IP and providing some framework? 
> Assuming the answer to this is 'no'. What is the relationship to Red Hat, what are the limits on project (and board) authority? 

This is key: we (we == JMW, and myself, and Red Hat and everyone else)
want Gluster to be run as a *real* open source project. Not some
front for Red Hat, not as some kinda pseudo-FOSS project where
RH has ultimate control (ala Oracle and Java), but a real FOSS project.
RH will provide support and resources to the effort, of course,
but not use or abuse any sort of "control" over it, and the
board will be empowered to make sure that's the case (and not
only w/ RH of course).

Hope this helps!


--
Jim Jagielski | jimjag at redhat.com | 443-324-8390 (cell)
Open Source and Standards, Red Hat - http://community.redhat.com