1.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Collaborative Leadership:
Governance Beyond
Company Affiliation
KubeCon NA November 2020
Dr. Dawn M. Foster
Director of OSS Community Strategy
fosterd@vmware.com fastwonderblog.com
Open Source at VMware @vmwopensource
blogs.vmware.com/opensource

2.
@geekygirldawn©2020 VMware, Inc.
Project Ownership: Foundations and Companies
Governance is About the People
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Leadership
Final Thoughts
Resources
2
Agenda
Photo by Marco Verch - CC BY 2.0

3.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn 3
whoami
• Geek, traveler, reader
• 20+ yr tech career focused on
community & open source
(Intel, Puppet, Scale Factory, …)
• OpenUK Board, CHAOSS Board and
Maintainer, Bitergia Advisory Board
• Kubernetes contributor & CNCF
Contributor Strategy SIG
• PhD from the University of Greenwich
focus on Linux kernel collaborationPhotos by Mom, Josh Bancroft, Don Park

4.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Project Ownership
Photo by K-nekoTR - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

5.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Leadership,
trademarks,
and projects
5
Determining
Neutrality for
Foundations?
Image by Andreas Komodromos CC BY-NC 2.0

6.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Lower risk:
participate as equals
6
Neutral Foundations

7.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Higher risk:
single company
in control
7
Company
Originated
Photo by Jan Fidler - CC BY 2.0

8.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Give up control for
increased collaboration
8
Contributing
to Foundations

9.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0
Governance
Materials from the CNCF Contributor Strategy SIG, Governance WG
provided some of the content for this section
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0

10.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Processes for how
people collaborate
and make decisions
10
Governance is
about People
Photo by Allen and Allen - CC BY 2.0

11.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Licensing, code of conduct,
contribution, and
communication process
11
Minimum
Documentation
Photo by Jenni C - CC BY 2.0

12.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Process for
reporting and
responding to
security issues
12
Security
Image by darwin Bell CC BY-NC 2.0

13.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Opportunity
and
responsibility
13
Leadership
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0
https://github.com/cncf/sig-contributor-strategy/tree/master/governance

14.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Code of conduct,
leadership,
and community
14
Diversity and
Inclusion
Photo by David Jakes - CC BY 2.0
https://chaoss.community/metrics

15.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Never “done”
can always
be improved
15
Governance
Evolves
Image by Cristine CC BY-NC 2.0

16.
©2020 VMware, Inc. @geekygirldawn
Setting expectations
reduces uncertainty
and makes people
feel welcome
16
Final Thoughts
on Governance
Image by the CNCF CC BY-NC 2.0

17.
@geekygirldawn©2020 VMware, Inc. 17
Resources
Linux Foundation’s TODO Group
https://todogroup.org/guides/
CNCF Contributor Strategy SIG
https://github.com/cncf/sig-contributor-strategy
The Open Source Way Guidebook
https://github.com/theopensourceway/guidebook/
Photo by Vicente - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

18.
@geekygirldawn©2020 VMware, Inc.
Dr. Dawn M. Foster
fosterd@vmware.com
fastwonderblog.com
Open Source at VMware
blogs.vmware.com/opensource
@vmwopensource
18
Thank You!
Photo by Thangaraj Kumaravel - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0