[dpdk-moving] [dpdk-dev] Project Governance and Linux Foundation

[O'Driscoll, Tim]

Thanks for the summary Dave. It looks good to me.

As Thomas suggested, I've dropped the dev and users mailing lists and just posted this to moving at dpdk.org. I assume those who are interested have subscribed by now.

If we're to meet our target of having a budget proposal in 4 weeks we'll need to have regular meetings with the LF. I'll contact Mike Dolan and arrange a time for a kick-off meeting either later this week or early next week.
	
In the meantime, it would be useful for people to review the budget proposal that we created with LF earlier this year (the "Baseline" column in https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-3686Xb_jf4FtxdX8Mus9UwIxUb2vI_ppmJV5GnXcLg/edit#gid=302618256) and think about what should be added/removed. In that proposal we had $0 for IT infrastructure, but at last week's discussion there was strong interest in having support for CI. That either means increasing the overall budget requirement, or else re-prioritising other items.


Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: moving [mailto:moving-bounces at dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Thomas
> Monjalon
> Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2016 8:27 PM
> To: moving at dpdk.org
> Cc: dev at dpdk.org; users at dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-moving] [dpdk-dev] Project Governance and Linux
> Foundation
> 
> Hi,
> Thanks Dave for the report.
> 
> I suggest to continue on the new mailing list:
> 	moving at 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