OpenStack Governance

The OpenStack project is governed by two separate governance bodies, formally defined in the OpenStack Foundation bylaws. The bylaws define a third body, the User Committee, which was previously run distinctly from the Technical Committee, but those effectively merged into a single elected governance body in August, 2020.

Board of Directors

The OpenStack Board of Directors has oversight over the OpenStack Foundation, and the assets the Foundation protects (such as the OpenStack trademark). It is composed of appointed representatives from Platinum sponsors, elected representatives from Gold sponsors, and elected independent representatives. You can find more information about the OpenStack Board of Directors activities and meetings on the Board wiki page.

Technical Committee

The OpenStack Technical Committee is the governing body of the OpenStack open source project. It is directly elected by all the contributors to the project, and has oversight on all technical matters. This includes developers, operators and end users of the software. Find more information about the Technical Committee, including its charter, current membership, reference documents and past resolutions.

Project Teams

The Project Teams are working groups that are directly responsible for the production of OpenStack software releases, either through the development and maintenance of specific components, or by running common development functions like QA or Release Management. Find more information about Project Teams.

SIGs

The SIGs (Special Interest Groups) are working groups that are not directly responsible for the production of a specific piece of OpenStack software. SIGs activities center around a topic or practice that spans all the community (developers, operators, end users…), by forming a guild of people with a shared interest. Find more information about SIGs.

Elections

OpenStack governance bodies and leaders are regularly renewed using elections. Find more information about community-organized Project Team leads and Technical Committee elections.

Ideas

The OpenStack Technical Committee is welcoming all news ideas of global changes to OpenStack, within the ideas repository. Changes related to a single official project should be discussed directly with the project team instead.