newspeak

I just republished this blog post examining the dissolution of OpenStack into echo chambers. What would have caused this failure if it has in fact occurred? Other large and roughly similar consortia, like Eclipse, have not succumbed to this dismemberment death. Perhaps it’s a characteristic of the makeup of the project, both in terms of the code and in terms of the financial, political structure. To me, and I readily admit my knowledge is imperfect, it seems to have gained the anatomy of a make-believe pony, at least after the first year, and has been driven more as a set of fronts for corporate leverage than as a consortium working on a commons. What holds a set of communities together is, I think, that very commons, that which is shared by all stakeholders.

But, perhaps I’m wrong. Yet there have been more and more declamations that OpenStack is ailing, even as it gains more and more corporate mass.

via Goodbye, OpenStack | gigofham.com.

Goodbye, OpenStack | gigofham.com.

At the end of the day, participating in OpenStack was a not enjoyable. It felt more like managing a massive software project at a huge enterprise organization where every “project” was a different department, as opposed to feeling like an open source project where people could make a difference. It was a full time soul-sucking job, and today I resigned. I’m going to miss hanging out with a lot of my OpenStack friends, but the summit early next year is in my home town and I’m looking forward to sharing the joys of Austin with them while they are here. I’m also going to enjoy not having come with with a reason to attend the summit for a full week, and that sign alone meant it was time to go.