Re: Project Governance and Linux Foundation

[Thomas Monjalon <thomas.monjalon@6wind.com>]

Hi,
Thanks Dave for the report.

I suggest to continue on the new mailing list:
	moving@dpdk.org
Please register if you are interested in the structure move:
	http://dpdk.org/ml/listinfo/moving


2016-10-21 15:00, Dave Neary:
> Hi all,
> 
> We had a great session yesterday on this topic, I took some notes - does
> anyone who was there have any corrections, or anyone who was not have
> any comments?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dave.
> 
> Tim led the discussion, and started by outlining that he saw there were
> 3 different questions which we should treat independently:
> 
> 1. Is there a benefit to moving DPDK to a foundation?
> 2. If the answer is yes: there are two options currently proposed - a
> low overhead, independent project under the Linux Foundation (LF Lite),
> or joining fd.io as a sub-project. Which one of these is preferable, or
> is there another option to consider?
> 3. Are there any related changes we should consider in technical
> infrastructure and project governance?
> 
> I outlined some advantages I see to the Linux Foundation:
> * Pool resources for events
> * Provides some legal foresight
> * LF standing behind a project gives some companies assurances that
> there is good, open technical governance and a level playing field for
> participants
> 
> Stephen Hemminger asked if there was a sponsorship requirement. Tim
> responded that it is possible to do what Open vSwitch has done, and have
> no membership funding requirement. What that means is that any funds the
> project community wants to spend needs to be budgeted ad hoc.
> 
> A number of others (Shreyansh Jain, Matt Spencer) said they would like
> to see a formal model for non-technical engagement, legal protection for
> patent and copyright, and more clarity on the technical governance.
> 
> Vincent Jardin said that whatever happens, it is vital that DPDK remain
> an open, community-run project.
> 
> A number of people expressed interest in the change, but could not
> commit to funding.
> 
> Jerome Tollet said that he felt it was important to have better test and
> CI infrastructure, and that these cost money. He proposed that since
> fd.io already has infrastructure and a lab, that this would be an
> affordable option for doing this.
> 
> Vincent and Thomas Monjalon suggested that distributed testing was a
> better option - creating an opportunity for different people to send
> test results to a central gathering point. Thomas mentioned that
> Patchwork has a feature which allows aggregation of test results for
> specific patches now.
> 
> Tim asked if there was agreement on a move, and there was no opposition.
> Vincent suggested opening a call for proposals to have a wider range of
> choices than LF Lite or fd.io. Jim St. Leger said we have already had a
> group who evaluated options and made a proposal, and we should not re-do
> the process.
> 
> Jerome recommended that we focus on requirements and criteria for
> determining the choice: timing, governance requirements, budget, and
> hardware/infrastructure requirements. Keith Wiles suggested that there
> was a need for some budgetary requirement to show commitment of
> participating companies.
> 
> When asked about transferring the ownership of the domain name to Linux
> Foundation, Vincent reiterated that his main concern was keeping the
> project open, and that he did not anticipate that transferring the
> domain ownership would be an issue.
> 
> Moving on to question 2:
> 
> I said that Red Hat is happy with the technical operation of the
> project, and we don't want to see the community disrupted with toolset
> changes - and it's possible to work with projects like fd.io, OVS, and
> OPNFV to do testing of DPDK.
> 
> Representatives from Brocade, Cavium, and Linaro all voiced a preference
> for a stand-alone lightweight project - one concern voiced was that
> there is a potential perception issue with fd.io too.
> 
> Maciek K and Jerome encouraged everyone not to underestimate the
> difficulty in setting up good CI and testing processes.
> 
> To close out the meeting, Tim summarised the consensus decisions:
> 
> * We agreed to move to a foundation
> * A group will work on re-doing a budget proposal with the Linux
> Foundation - target of 4 weeks to come up with a budget proposal for the
> community
> * There is a preference for an independent project rather than being a
> sub-project
> 
> Budget group:
> * Matt Spencer, ARM
> * Jerome Tollet, Cisco
> * Ed Warnicke, Cisco
> * Shreyansh Jain, NXP
> * Dave Neary, Red Hat
> * Jan Blunk, Brocade
> * Vincent Jardin, 6WIND
> * Thomas Monjalon, 6WIND
> * Tim O'Driscoll, Intel
> * Francois Ozog, Linaro
> * John Bromhead (sp?), Cavium