From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-vk0-f50.google.com (mail-vk0-f50.google.com [209.85.213.50]) by dpdk.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 543006943 for ; Mon, 31 Oct 2016 17:07:05 +0100 (CET) Received: by mail-vk0-f50.google.com with SMTP id d65so80429183vkg.0 for ; Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:07:05 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=linuxfoundation.org; s=google; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=LpCFG66+DyXidl2vKtT2nbBvWS5OXIqZVaSg+Ua72N8=; b=Dj2j8GKYHhOcG9PL3C9hHCOsZ6YyLzuUPCVYxhXJnV1KZbee1wJvrbLDOcE7b7m2ko BjmRENn32LyuHNWA5SKH999+VUo/FXnI7S84YU/mQkxqTD2ApsMASMkTgE66fX77NvKY nabb7cV4//g9KBeJ3M7EFJcrk9q03VgOs9eug= X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=LpCFG66+DyXidl2vKtT2nbBvWS5OXIqZVaSg+Ua72N8=; b=fBQnUeKFq4klI8anAHWRxe/pqVwuWuZFZ/ONYSh4iqp6BWWgo1juPTvi2p/jNwrdnm 0GndhA4rg5JM9bmhK2prwmHSDEG7cmr9S0pA+GpvP72DdQysANxOeiLhgnafBcMlxwbS 6FeVFDMFDrzwZ+DZffaQZauwV0lYKL4KNzlV9FfAJpaNWZEcwS31NRDTcH9MWMLqH8oH 5J4io28xQOd3vJSNbpDA/r/3i3TrfbtLXSgdXXQsYUyQyCpxPxi4v01K0M/xt9nw+tnf qjrpr8AAPIJ4AIfi2yQXAnqgvQJdFiEx11jgmXZzufKBEdpcEtNL1wa/4Re/0bK5GP42 6g5Q== X-Gm-Message-State: ABUngvfiAxsOy4DsDQMSHbxLuDtlWG20Z7q1nGwtX1HZQv3wbuOyyCP9J6FKu9YD11ap5XqaiTgAjz0S7mjFl7EU X-Received: by 10.31.21.3 with SMTP id 3mr21622934vkv.48.1477930024510; Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:07:04 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.176.65.33 with HTTP; Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:07:03 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <26FA93C7ED1EAA44AB77D62FBE1D27BA676091C7@IRSMSX108.ger.corp.intel.com> <2677739.KbWyRmNgFH@xps13> <1580d802a08.27fc.bb328046f2889bc8f44aafa891a44dd2@6wind.com> From: Michael Dolan Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 12:07:03 -0400 Message-ID: To: Matt Spencer Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1143ad081d3bab05402b661d Cc: "moving@dpdk.org" Subject: Re: [dpdk-moving] description of technical governance X-BeenThere: moving@dpdk.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list List-Id: DPDK community structure changes List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:07:05 -0000 --001a1143ad081d3bab05402b661d Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi everyone, it's great to see the discussion and thoughts. I'll point out a few nuances to how we run projects to help with expectations and structural understanding. First, for technical governance, the project/sub-projects always make technical decisions. There is no option to "buy a vote" - you "vote" with contributions, technical merit and becoming a committer/maintainer over time based on prior contribution and technical leadership. Some Projects do setup a TSC ("Technical Steering Committee") that oversees the Project structure (e.g. sub-projects, modules, etc), the technical community (e.g. elevating new Maintainers/Committers) and any technical policies / rules (e.g. tabs vs spacing, release timelines and milestones, etc). Some Projects do give funders a role on the TSC, but that varies widely and we try to avoid it if a community already has a diverse technical contribution community. It's generally most helpful when starting a Project based entirely on 1 company's codebase and it gives others a say to ensure it's neutral while new committers are ramping up/learning the codebase. Second, we do host projects that do not raise any funds at all. They're projects we'll host for LF members if there's a community interested in it. However, please understand up front that those projects receives no resources from the LF. E.g. we don't run an OVS infrastructure for CI. The LF simply becomes the neutral home for key community assets like the trademark and domain so 1 participant in the community doesn't control everything. Please understand the LF is a non-profit and we receive funds from various projects but those funds are for those projects and we can't take funds from some other effort and apply them to DPDK - our auditors and members of the other projects we took funds from would not be happy to say the least. Third, when there is funding involved in a project, we typically setup a Governing Board that owns responsibility for how to spend the funding. The Governing Board does not make technical decisions or tell the technical projects what to do. The Governing Board is simply for those contributing funds to have a say in how those funds are spent. Often some projects will also setup the Governing Board to work on any marketing or legal topics as well. Ultimately the LF will not be making decisions on how Project funds are spent, so we rely on the funders to make those decisions. Typically there's a single or multi-tier membership structure. If multi-tier, the top tier usually gets an automatic seat on the Governing Board and a lower tier usually has a representation model (e.g. 1 seat per every X lower tier members). Typically the ratio is based on roughly what the contribution of X is relative to the higher tier members. E.g. if there's a top tier "Premier" at $50k/year and a lower tier "General" and it has a blended average of $5k/year, then there would be 1 General Member seat for ever 10 General Members to roughly equal what the Premier Members are paying. Note that this investment at any level does not "buy" technical decisions. Members who contribute funds do so to make sure there is something they want available for the community (e.g. if build/CI infrastructure is desired). What they get is a leveraged investment - e.g. they're not paying to build the entire infrastructure themselves, but sharing the cost with others. Typically a "hook" is to have a logo or something available to show your company is a "DPDK Project Member" or "Sponsor" and then to have an opportunity to be on the Governing Board. Without the funding, the community resources would not exist or would have to be provided by someone in the community unilaterally. Node.js for example receives a lot of contributions of various resources (e.g. CDN) for free from members of their ecosystem - which means they can raise a much lower amount in membership fees. And for some communities like OVS, they really don't need any public community resources other than GitHub and a webpage - and that's just fine for them. I apologize for the length, but hopefully this will be helpful in guiding discussions about how LF Projects are structured and some of the rationale behind it. Thanks, Mike --- Mike Dolan VP of Strategic Programs The Linux Foundation Office: +1.330.460.3250 Cell: +1.440.552.5322 Skype: michaelkdolan mdolan@linuxfoundation.org --- On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Matt Spencer wrote= : > Thanks for the responses. I'm really looking forward to the debate later > today! > > > One point I would raise, and it is one that Thomas picked up on a bit. I > don't think we can have a pure meritocracy /and/ expect some of the > membership to pay to support the project management. I am going to have = a > very hard time explaining to my exec why we should be spending $$$ on DPD= K > when there is no clear benefit to membership. > > > Comparisons have ben made to the OVS project, which is fine, but OVS does > not have any membership costs (as far as I can see) and LF host this > project for free. > > > I don't think we can have both of these positions hold true. We either > have > > 1 - a pure meritocracy - ie the governance does not change and I believe > we are in the same position as we are today > > 2 - Something a bit more like FD.io, with paid membership and paid acces= s > to a board/TSC > > > Regards > > > Matt > ------------------------------ > *From:* Vincent Jardin > *Sent:* 28 October 2016 23:54:13 > *To:* Thomas Monjalon; moving@dpdk.org; Matt Spencer > *Subject:* Re: [dpdk-moving] description of technical governance > > > > Le 28 octobre 2016 9:22:43 PM Thomas Monjalon > a > =C3=A9crit : > > > 2016-10-28 16:52, Matt Spencer: > >> 1 - we adopt the model as is - one TSC member per committer > >> As this stands today, that would give us 56 TSC members, > >> with almost half of them from one company > >> > >> 2 - we adopt the model as is - one TSC member per committer - > >> to a maximum of 20% membership of the TSC > >> This would ensure that no one company can 'own' the TSC - > >> 56 committers, so max TSC membership from one company would be 11 > >> > >> 3 - Maximum one member of TSC per committing company, > >> plus one TSC assignee per paid member > >> This would keep the TSC to a manageable level, give companies > >> an incentive to join, but not require membership to be on the TSC > >> > >> 4 - Something else? > >> > >> My current thoughts are with 3 because we should end up with a > >> representative cross section of the stakeholders of the project, > >> whilst still incentivising membership of the foundation. > > > > Thanks for sharing your view. > > > > I'm an Open Source guy and I might lack some politician skills. > > So please excuse me if I take the freedom to talk really frankly :) > > > > First of all, this email thread was dedicated to the technical > governance. > > And Matt is introducing money in this topic by talking about incentives= . > > I think it is a very interesting point that we must discuss. > > From the beginning, everybody were saying that we must keep technical > > governance and legal structure separate. > > However one question has still no good answer: what is the incentive > > for contributing money in the structure? > > Is money going to biase the desired meritocratic system? > > > > My second comment is about having one company controlling the technical > > governance. > > I won't enter into the number details, and it's true that Intel provide= s > > at least 50% of the contributions nowadays. Intel is also the biggest > > contributor to Linux. No surprise. > > I understand that a voice from ARM is requiring to mitigate this fact. > > I would prefer ARM related companies working to achieve the same > > level of commitment as Intel. They are increasing their contribution pa= ce > > but may never really compete with a giant like Intel. > > That's why I second Matt to say that we must give a chance to every > > vendors to influence the technical decisions. > > Introducing a membership threshold looks to be a good idea. > > > > Having said that, I must state that the DPDK reality is a lot more > > complex than a competition between vendors. > > We are proving that a consensus based model works very well without > > the need of a TSC or a board. > > We can create such organization, but please keep in mind that it should > > not be really helpful in the day-to-day job. > > +2 > > From contributions, meritocracy is applied. > > > IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are > confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended > recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the > contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy th= e > information in any medium. Thank you. > --001a1143ad081d3bab05402b661d Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Hi everyone, it's great to see the discussion and thou= ghts. I'll point out a few nuances to how we run projects to help with = expectations and structural understanding.=C2=A0

First, = for technical governance, the project/sub-projects always make technical de= cisions. There is no option to "buy a vote" - you "vote"= ; with contributions, technical merit and becoming a committer/maintainer o= ver time based on prior contribution and technical leadership.=C2=A0
<= div>
Some Projects do setup a TSC ("Technical Steering C= ommittee") that oversees the Project structure (e.g. sub-projects, mod= ules, etc), the technical community (e.g. elevating new Maintainers/Committ= ers) and any technical policies / rules (e.g. tabs vs spacing, release time= lines and milestones, etc). Some Projects do give funders a role on the TSC= , but that varies widely and we try to avoid it if a community already has = a diverse technical contribution community. It's generally most helpful= when starting a Project based entirely on 1 company's codebase and it = gives others a say to ensure it's neutral while new committers are ramp= ing up/learning the codebase.=C2=A0

Second, we do = host projects that do not raise any funds at all. They're projects we&#= 39;ll host for LF members if there's a community interested in it. Howe= ver, please understand up front that those projects receives no resources f= rom the LF. E.g. we don't run an OVS infrastructure for CI. The LF simp= ly becomes the neutral home for key community assets like the trademark and= domain so 1 participant in the community doesn't control everything. P= lease understand the LF is a non-profit and we receive funds from various p= rojects but those funds are for those projects and we can't take funds = from some other effort and apply them to DPDK - our auditors and members of= the other projects we took funds from would not be happy to say the least.=

Third, when there is funding involved in a projec= t, we typically setup a Governing Board that owns responsibility for how to= spend the funding. The Governing Board does not make technical decisions o= r tell the technical projects what to do. The Governing Board is simply for= those contributing funds to have a say in how those funds are spent. Often= some projects will also setup the Governing Board to work on any marketing= or legal topics as well. Ultimately the LF will not be making decisions on= how Project funds are spent, so we rely on the funders to make those decis= ions.=C2=A0

Typically there's a single or mult= i-tier membership structure. If multi-tier, the top tier usually gets an au= tomatic seat on the Governing Board and a lower tier usually has a represen= tation model (e.g. 1 seat per every X lower tier members). Typically the ra= tio is based on roughly what the contribution of X is relative to the highe= r tier members. E.g. if there's a top tier "Premier" at $50k/= year and a lower tier "General" and it has a blended average of $= 5k/year, then there would be 1 General Member seat for ever 10 General Memb= ers to roughly equal what the Premier Members are paying.

Note that this investment at any level does not "buy" tec= hnical decisions. Members who contribute funds do so to make sure there is = something they want available for the community (e.g. if build/CI infrastru= cture is desired). What they get is a leveraged investment - e.g. they'= re not paying to build the entire infrastructure themselves, but sharing th= e cost with others. Typically a "hook" is to have a logo or somet= hing available to show your company is a "DPDK Project Member" or= "Sponsor" and then to have an opportunity to be on the Governing= Board.=C2=A0

Without the funding, the community r= esources would not exist or would have to be provided by someone in the com= munity unilaterally. Node.js for example receives a lot of contributions of= various resources (e.g. CDN) for free from members of their ecosystem - wh= ich means they can raise a much lower amount in membership fees. And for so= me communities like OVS, they really don't need any public community re= sources other than GitHub and a webpage - and that's just fine for them= .

I apologize for the length, but hopefully this w= ill be helpful in guiding discussions about how LF Projects are structured = and some of the rationale behind it.

Thanks,
=

Mike


---
Mike Dolan
VP of Strategic Programs
The Li= nux Foundation
Office: +1.330.460.3250 =C2=A0=C2=A0Cell: +1.440.552.5322= =C2=A0Skype: michaelkdolan
mdolan@linuxfoundation.org
---

<= /div>

On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Matt Spenc= er <Matt.Spencer@arm.com> wrote:

Thanks for the responses.=C2=A0 I'm really looking forward to the de= bate later today!


One point I would raise, and it is one that Thomas picked up on a bit.= =C2=A0 I don't think we can have a pure meritocracy /and/ expect some o= f the membership to pay to support the project management.=C2=A0 I am going= to have a very hard time explaining to my exec why we should be spending $$$ on DPDK when there is no clear benefit to me= mbership.


Comparisons have ben made to the OVS project, which is fine, but OVS doe= s not have any membership costs (as far as I can see) and LF host this proj= ect for free.


I don't think we can have both of these positions hold true.=C2=A0 W= e either have

=C2=A01 - a=C2=A0pure=C2=A0meritocracy - ie the governance does not chan= ge and I believe we are in the same position as we are today

=C2=A02 - Something a bit more like FD.io, with paid membership and paid= access to a board/TSC


Regards


Matt

From: Vincent Jardin <vincent.jardin@6wind.com>
Sent: 28 October 2016 23:54:13
To: Thomas Monjalon; moving@dpdk.org; Matt Spencer
Subject: Re: [dpdk-moving] description of technical governance
=C2=A0


Le 28 octobre 2016 9:22:43 PM Thomas Monjalon <thomas.monjalon@6wind.com> a <= br> =C3=A9crit :

> 2016-10-28 16:52, Matt Spencer:
>> 1 - we adopt the model as is - one TSC member per committer
>> As this stands today, that would give us 56 TSC members,
>> with almost half of them from one company
>>
>> 2 - we adopt the model as is - one TSC member per committer -
>> to a maximum of 20% membership of the TSC
>> This would ensure that no one company can 'own' the TSC -<= br> >> 56 committers, so max TSC membership from one company would be 11<= br> >>
>> 3 - Maximum one member of TSC per committing company,
>> plus one TSC assignee per paid member
>> This would keep the TSC to a manageable level, give companies
>> an incentive to join, but not require membership to be on the TSC<= br> >>
>> 4 - Something else?
>>
>> My current thoughts are with 3 because we should end up with a
>> representative cross section of the stakeholders of the project, >> whilst still incentivising membership of the foundation.
>
> Thanks for sharing your view.
>
> I'm an Open Source guy and I might lack some politician skills. > So please excuse me if I take the freedom to talk really frankly :) >
> First of all, this email thread was dedicated to the technical governa= nce.
> And Matt is introducing money in this topic by talking about incentive= s.
> I think it is a very interesting point that we must discuss.
> From the beginning, everybody were saying that we must keep technical<= br> > governance and legal structure separate.
> However one question has still no good answer: what is the incentive > for contributing money in the structure?
> Is money going to biase the desired meritocratic system?
>
> My second comment is about having one company controlling the technica= l
> governance.
> I won't enter into the number details, and it's true that Inte= l provides
> at least 50% of the contributions nowadays. Intel is also the biggest<= br> > contributor to Linux. No surprise.
> I understand that a voice from ARM is requiring to mitigate this fact.=
> I would prefer ARM related companies working to achieve the same
> level of commitment as Intel. They are increasing their contribution p= ace
> but may never really compete with a giant like Intel.
> That's why I second Matt to say that we must give a chance to ever= y
> vendors to influence the technical decisions.
> Introducing a membership threshold looks to be a good idea.
>
> Having said that, I must state that the DPDK reality is a lot more
> complex than a competition between vendors.
> We are proving that a consensus based model works very well without > the need of a TSC or a board.
> We can create such organization, but please keep in mind that it shoul= d
> not be really helpful in the day-to-day job.

+2

=C2=A0From contributions, meritocracy is applied.


IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email= and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you ar= e not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do n= ot disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Thank = you.

--001a1143ad081d3bab05402b661d--