Some Thoughts on Gluster Community Governance

tl;dr
– This is a long description designed to elicit constructive discussion of some recent Gluster Community governance initiatives. For all things related to Gluster Community Governance, see gluster.org/Governance

The recent initiatives around GlusterFS development and project governance have been quite amazing to witness – we have been making steady progress towards a “real” open source model for over a year now, and the 3.5 planning meetings are a testament to that.

You may have also noticed recent announcements about organizations joining the Gluster Community and the formation of a Gluster Community Board. This is part of the same process of opening up and making a better, more active community, but there is a need to define some of the new (and potentially confusing) terminology.

– Gluster Community: What is the Gluster Community? It is a group of developers, users and organizations dedicated to the development of GlusterFS and related projects. GlusterFS is the flagship project of the Gluster Community, but it is not the only one – see forge.gluster.org to get a sense of the scope of the entire ecosystem. Gluster Community governance is different from GlusterFS project governance.

– Gluster Community Board: This consists of individuals from the Gluster Community, as well as representatives of organizations that have signed letters of intent to contribute to the Gluster Community.

– Letter of Intent: document signed by organizations who wish to make material contributions to the Gluster Community. These contributions may take many forms, including code contributions, event coordination, documentation, testing, and more. How organizations may contribute is listed at gluster.org/governance

– Gluster Software Distribution: with so many projects filling out the Gluster Community, there is a need for an incubation process, as well as a need for criteria that determine eligibility for graduating from incubation into the GSD. We don’t yet know how we will do this and are looking for your input.

We realized some time ago that there was quite a demand for contributing to and growing the community, but there was no structure in place to do it. The above is our attempt to create an inclusive community that is not solely dependent on Red Hat and enlists the services of those who view the Gluster Community as a valuable part of their business.

All of this is in-process but not yet finalized. There is an upcoming board meeting on September 18 where we will vote on parts or all of this.

For all links and documents regarding Gluster Community governance, you can always find the latest here: gluster.org/Governance