OpenStack User Committee Charter

Mission

The User Committee’s (UC) mission is to serve the user community of OpenStack, representing them to the broader community (including the Technical Committee, Board of Directors, Projects and PTLs, and projects outside OpenStack). The UC recognizes competence and contribution, and when necessary resolves disputes in accordance with the OpenStack Code of Conduct. The UC keeps track of OpenStack deployments and usage, helping to share user stories and experiences. The User Committee works with user groups worldwide to keep the community vibrant and informed.

User Committee Members

The User Committee (UC) will consist of five members. All members selected to the UC shall be Individual Members and Active User Contributors (AUC) based on the definition in the next section. A member of the UC may cease to be an Individual Member during her or his term, but must be an Individual Member at the time of nomination and election. The UC shall organize its meetings and may, create elected seats to be filled by a vote of the Individual Members recognized as AUCs. UC members shall terminate upon the death, resignation, removal or failure to be re-elected to the UC. The procedures for such removal shall be determined by the UC. Cause shall include (i) failure to attend more than half of the UC meetings within any twelve month period, (ii) breach of the Code of Conduct, (iii) declaration of unsound mind by a final order of court, or (iv) conviction of a felony.

Active User Contributors (AUC)

Users are recognized as part of the community and therefore granted with AUC (Active User Contributor) status when they have engaged in one or more of the following activities:

  • Organizers of Official OpenStack User Groups: from the Groups Portal

  • Active members and contributors to functional teams and/or working groups (currently also manually calculated for WGs not using IRC): from IRC logs

  • Moderators of any of the operators official meet-up sessions: Currently manually calculated.

  • Contributors to any repository under the UC governance: from Gerrit

  • Track chairs for OpenStack summits: from the Track Chair tool

  • Contributors to Superuser (articles, interviews, user stories, etc.): from the Superuser backend

  • Active moderators on ask.openstack.org: from Ask OpenStack

UC Chair and Membership

The UC proposes one of its members to act as the UC chair. In the case of multiple candidates, it may use a single-winner election method to decide the result (see below). The Board of Directors has the authority to approve the UC chair and shall approve the proposition, unless otherwise justified by its bylaws. The UC chair is responsible for making sure meetings are held according to the rules described below, and for communicating the decisions taken during those meetings to the Board of Directors and the OpenStack community at large. Any member of the UC, including the UC Chair, may be revoked of its membership under the conditions described in the OpenStack Foundation bylaws.

Meetings

UC meetings happen publicly, weekly on IRC. The meeting times should be decided among UC members. If there isn’t consensus on a meeting time, the option of rotating the time weekly should be explored. The UC maintains an open agenda on the wiki. The UC meeting is automatically called if anything is posted to that wiki by one of its members at least one day before the meeting time. All functional teams and working groups leads are expected to join or to send a representative at least quarterly with monthly preferred. For a meeting to be actually held, at least half of the UC members need to be present. Non-members affected by a given discussion are strongly encouraged to participate in the meeting and voice their opinion, though only UC members can ultimately cast a vote.

Motions

Before being put to a vote, motions presented before the UC should be discussed publicly on the UC mailing-list for a minimum of 4 business days to give a chance to the wider community to express their opinion. UC members can vote positively, negatively, or abstain. Decisions need more positive votes than negative votes (ties mean the motion is rejected).

Proxying

When a UC member is unable to make a meeting, they are encouraged to name a proxy that will represent their opinion and vote on their behalf during the meeting. Only members really present at the meeting (directly or proxied) can vote. A UC member may proxy another member, but nobody should ever represent more than two votes.

Structure - Functional Teams

These are defined as permanent teams as long as they maintain a meaningful mission in order to help the UC to achieve its mission. The work of the functional teams is performed under the oversight of the UC. The functional teams are listed in Teams.

Structure - Working Groups

These are defined as temporary teams with medium-short term goals and they will exist until they have achieved those. The work of the working groups is performed under the oversight of the UC.

Process for Creating a New Working Group/Functional Team

Committee Election

The allotted number of UC seats are partially renewed every 6 months using staggered elections: the minority number of seats are renewed every (Northern hemisphere) Spring, and the majority number of seats are renewed every Fall. Seats are valid for one-year terms. For this election we’ll use a single-winner election system. The election is held no later than 3 weeks prior to each OpenStack Summit, with elections held open for no less than four business days.

Filling Vacated UC Members

If a seat on the UC is vacated before the end of the term for which the member was elected, the UC will select a replacement to serve out the remainder of the term. The mechanism for selecting the replacement depends on when the seat is vacated relative to the beginning of the candidacy period for the next scheduled UC election. Selected candidates must meet all other constraints for membership in the UC.

If the vacancy opens less than four weeks before the candidacy period for the next scheduled UC election begins, and the seat vacated would have been contested in the upcoming election anyway, then the seat will remain open until the election and filled by the normal election process.

If the vacancy opens less than four weeks before the candidacy period or the next scheduled UC election begins and the seat would not have been contested in the upcoming election, the candidates who do not win seats in the election will be consulted in the order they appear in the results until a candidate who is capable of serving agrees to serve out the partial term.

If the vacancy opens with more than four weeks until the candidacy period for the next scheduled UC election begins, regardless of whether the vacated seat would have been contested in the next election, the candidates who did not win seats in the most recent previous UC election will be consulted in the order they appear in the results until a candidate who is capable of serving agrees to serve out the partial term.

Amendments

Amendments to this UC charter shall be proposed in a special motion, which needs to be approved by the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the total number of UC members.