I am throwing my hat into the ring for the TC election.

I've been a part of OpenStack since it started. I've seen it grow from
a few dozen people into the very large community we have today. During
the past 6 years, I've seen controversial topics come and go and the
community grow and adapt. I've also seen OpenStack respond in knee-
jerk fashion to new ideas that challenge the status quo.

I am concerned that there is a current focus on preserving the status
quo. There's focus on policies and rules instead of use cases; there's
focus on conformity instead of innovation; there's focus on forced
prioritization instead of inclusivity.

The primary things OpenStack should be focused on are increased
adoption today and continued relevance in the next five years.

We have a lovely community today, and we attract thousands to our
semi-annual conference. I love seeing companies, big and small, come
share their stories of how they're using OpenStack. It's great to hear
from them over time and see how their use of OpenStack changes and
grows. However, I'm concerned that we keep seeing mostly the same
people, the same companies, and the same sponsors show up to each
event. I'm concerned that, outside of our community bubble, OpenStack
is still largely unknown and little-used. In order to increase
adoption, the TC must look at the use cases we are serving. We must
realize where we are falling short in solving for current use cases,
and we must encourage growth in new use cases which we don't yet
support. To better-solve current use cases, I would like to see more
emphasis on SDK development (across many languages) and the creation
of governance tags identifying projects that are independently
deployable for specific use cases. To encourage solving more use cases
within OpenStack, I would like to see less requirements placed on new
projects and more clear communication about the various ways new
projects can join OpenStack.

In order to stay relevant in the technical world, the OpenStack TC
must figure out how the community itself can foster new ideas and grow
them within OpenStack. We should not ask new projects to split into
OpenStack and non-OpenStack pieces before joining. We should not ask
existing OpenStack contributors to go elsewhere to develop their
ideas. We must inclusively welcome new contributors, new projects, and
new ideas. Sometimes these new ideas require significant effort to
adopt, but I will encourage the TC to take on the challenge.

If I am elected to the TC, I will look at every decision in the light
of these two needs. I will not focus on codifying rules, and I will
not focus on keeping OpenStack small and homogeneous. I will do what I
can to help the OpenStack community increase adoption today and remain
relevant as the industry changes.

I appreciate your vote for me to the TC in this election.

--John

notmyname on IRC