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From: The Haberdasher General on 4 Jul 2010 12:35
It's err?!! kinda like the Kremlin. Like,sometimes its Communism-with-
a-human-face. Like sometimes its the Gulag.
Err?!! It kinda cloudy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Haberdasher General
Dear Friends,
It is with an eye toward an open future that we address the many apt
criticisms levied at the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF)
and the difficult circumstance in which this community finds itself.
As the organizers of the community, we would like to make our
intentions clear. The following letter is not an edict or decree. It
is a heartfelt attempt to reach out to our fellow community members so
we might begin to move past recent events and together discuss our
options.
*An Apology*
While sifting through this week's enthusiastic and well-argued posts,
one issue rose to painful clarity: There is not, and has never been,
an agreed-upon definition of the CCIF. As organizers, we have
"announced," at various times, conflicting statements on how "our
members" should view this forum.
These definitions range from "cloud advocacy group," which implies
membership and organized offline activity, to the much narrower "e-
mail discussion group." Due to our failure to better define our
project, each community member has been left to his or her own
devices, latching onto any number of definitions.
At some point over the last few months, the community began to feel a
sense of ownership of and membership in the entity CCIF. Until this
week, we had not fully appreciated that the CCIF had become the de
facto membership organization for interoperability stakeholders.
Under this new premise, it is clear that our direct and private
engagement, in the name of the CCIF, vis a vis the Open Cloud
Manifesto, may be viewed as a breech of this community's norms. For
this oversight, we take full responsibility.
*Open Cloud Manifesto*
To this end, when the Open Cloud Manifesto is officially released on
Monday, March 30, the CCIF's name will not appear as a signatory. This
decision comes with great pain, as we fully endorse the document's
contents and its principals of a truly open cloud. However, this
community has issued a mandate of openness and fair process, loudly
and clearly, and so the CCIF can not in good faith endorse this
document.
Knowing what we know now, we certainly would have lobbied harder to
open the document to the forum before this uproar ensued.
*Governance and the Future of the CCIF*
Therein lies the problem. Consider this: even if we had secured the OK
to open the manifesto for discussion before signing in the name of
CCIF, there would have been no mechanism by which to formally make
changes or give approval. This is, or at least in our opinion ought to
be, unacceptable to most of the community.
Therefore, though this is simply a proposal to get us started
considering next steps, we feel that it is time for some degree of
formalization. This means governance and, of course, some or all of
the following components:
Formal mission statement, laws and articles
Formal membership structure
A board or other defined leadership structure
Formal decision-making mechanism
Committees and/or formal interest groups
Goals, deliverables, and activities
Wikis, Web sites, and other properties governed by our laws and
articles
Financial backing and/or formal associations with industry
If the community coalesces around formalization, CCIF's organizers
will go to the greatest possible lengths to ensure the process unfolds
openly and in the best interests of the cloud-computing community at
large, not for the benefit or self-aggrandizement of any specific
member or interest group.
Regarding the specifics of the outcome, we are not prepared to propose
or oppose any plan. If and when the time is right, we will create a
wiki or other mechanism to hash out details. For now, let's start
discussing whether this is the right direction for the CCIF.
Thank you and best wishes to all,
Sam Charrington, Reuven Cohen, Dave Niesen, Jesse Silver (alphabetical)
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