OpenStack was created during the first months of 2010. Rackspace wanted to rewrite the infrastructure code running its Cloud servers offering, and considered open sourcing the existing Cloud files code. At the same time, Anso Labs (contracting for NASA) had published beta code for Nova, a Python-based “cloud computing fabric controller”.
Both efforts converged and formed the base for OpenStack. The first Design Summit was held in Austin, TX on July 13-14, 2010, and the project was officially announced at OSCON in Portland, OR, on July 21st, 2010.
The OpenStack mission is “to produce the ubiquitous Open Source Cloud Computing platform that will meet the needs of public and private clouds regardless of size, by being simple to implement and massively scalable”.
It appeared on the wiki on May 24th, 2010 and still captures the long-term goal of the OpenStack community.
The best short definition of “the OpenStack Way” is the four opens as defined in the governance document approved by the Technical Committee.
http://governance.openstack.org/reference/opens.html
In the following chapters, we’ll further elaborate on those basic principles and explain more precisely what they mean for OpenStack project teams.
The original project governance defined three main bodies: the Advisory Board, the Architecture Board and Technical Committees for each sub-project.
This was quickly replaced early 2011 by the Project Oversight Committee, which consisted of a mix of elected and Rackspace-appointed members. PTLs were appointed by Rackspace too.
The governance model was once again tweaked in March 2011. The Project Oversight Committee was renamed to Project Policy Board (still a mix of appointed and elected members), and PTLs were elected by the contributors to their project for the first time.
In September 2012, the OpenStack Foundation was launched as an independent body providing shared resources to protect, empower, and promote OpenStack software and the community around it.
The reponsibilities of the Project Policy Board were split between two bodies:
The Technical Committee was originally formed by all the PTLs + five members directly elected by all the contributors. In June 2013, to accommodate the growth in the number of project teams and PTLs, the Technical Committee decided to switch to 13 directly-elected members instead. Half of those are renewed every 6 months.