All: I’d like to echo the thanks to the Eclipse Foundation for all its work this past almost two years as the EU CRA discussion has evolved in Europe, and for acting as convener in the current discussions. As I have read through everyone’s questions and commentary,
I would like to offer a few observations from the following perspectives:
-
I’m the Microsoft strategic member to the Eclipse Foundation Board since July ‘21.
-
I’m the Steering Committee chair for the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle Working Group since March ‘22.
- I support several product teams at Microsoft in their engagements with other Eclipse WGs (e.g., Jakarta EE, Adoption, Dataspace),
as well as several Eclipse projects (Eclipse ThreadX, Eclipse Dataspace Connector, Eclipse Symphony).
- I sit on several Linux Foundation directed fund governing boards and committees and am the alternate Microsoft board member to the Linux Foundation, so I have a broader perspective on how things are done in other nonprofit
spaces, not just the Eclipse Foundation.
The structure of the Open Regulatory Compliance WG charter follows all Eclipse working group charters. The scope is where the work is described, but the rest of the charter involves few choices and for the most part points to
the structured polices and processes used successfully by developers across Eclipse projects and members partnering across Eclipse WGs. From a personal perspective, I like the current scope because it gives us enough flexibility to adjust to EU and ESO
discussions over the coming months, and as we evolve the work together as partners, to tackle the next European regulatory challenges without needing to stand up additional WGs and the expense and work that entails.
A WG is run by its steering committee (SC). The essential work of the SC is to put together the program plan (i.e., the plan of work that meets the scope) and submit it to Eclipse staff, who in turn build a budget for the program plan based on in-bound membership
dues. The SC approves the budget, then in regular meetings the SC members work to plan, tuning the plan as necessary. A working group needs a staff program manager to keep all the plates spinning and other staff can be hired to meet the needs of the plan.
This of course depends on membership revenue and what the SC members want to accomplish. But the overarching idea for the SC members is that it is about the high order fiscal health of the WG.
- This is why the voting structure in the SC looks the way it does — it is ensuring that the companies paying the bills have a proportional vote. Indeed, the Eclipse Foundation method of scaling dues in a voting class allows
a more balanced diversity of voices.
- This means that while everyone is participating in the technical work of specifications projects
easily, the decisions on how costly education programs and materials or outreach activities gets discussed and budgeted as part of the program plan in the SC.
- Individual WG dues are scaled to the work in front of the members. Membership in the Eclipse Foundation supports the mission of the Eclipse Foundation and its projects (which is why software projects are free). The commitment
to working in the Eclipse Board is substantial (a week per year plus prep time) ensuring the health of the organization to deliver on that mission. WGs are separately funded by members partnering together around specific collaborations, concerns, and work.
The technical outputs for this WG happens in specifications projects. I worry that this is where some of the charter and policy docs assume too much familiarity when we have a lot of new people in the discussion. For example:
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A WG group expresses nonexclusive support for open source licensed Eclipse software projects, but
specifications projects are tied directly to a WG.
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The ORC WG supports the work happening in specifications projects, so a great FAQ explanation for everyone might be to clarify who gets to do work in a specification project, and then how will votes to ratify that work be counted.
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Some of the structure around individual members versus organizational members is designed to track provenance and protect individual contributors. A better FAQ discussion might help here.
- The documented rigor in the Eclipse Specification Process, tied to TDKs, should delight ESO like CEN/CENELEC but in our case where we are looking more to process related specifications, it might be helpful if
we had pointers to examples that don’t include TDKs so we could better understand how to think about some of the work ahead.
I hope this has acted as a bit of a decoder ring and might inform the larger discussions and FAQ. I’m happy to get on a call with anybody in this discussion to talk about Microsoft participation in the EF, and our additional commitments in WGs, as well as the
experience working under the Eclipse Foundation umbrella. Please don’t hesitate to ask. kind regards, always stephe
+1 425 785 6102
(he/him)
“Thursday
Morning Coffee” on Standards & Open Source
N.B. My working day may not be your working day! Please don’t feel obliged to read or reply to this e-mail outside of
your normal working hours.
From: open-regulatory-compliance <open-regulatory-compliance-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Jonne Soininen (Nokia) via open-regulatory-compliance <open-regulatory-compliance@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 5:10 PM
To: open-regulatory-compliance@xxxxxxxxxxx <open-regulatory-compliance@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Jonne Soininen (Nokia) <jonne.soininen@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [open-regulatory-compliance] Clarification on the WG practicalities
Hello everybody,
Also from my side, I would like to thank the Eclipse foundation for their activity to act as the convener to bring the larger open source community together. Eclipse has done some outstanding work on the charter proposal! I think that organizing
the community, which means all of us, to address the CRA is key for both the viability of the open source development model and the success of the CRA itself.
For this very reason, I find that getting the WG set up to the right direction is key. In my mind, there are some questions that I have both on setting the target of the WG, and the practicalities of the work in the WG. Let me try to address
some of the key points:
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Scope and charter: I think there are key questions that the WG should answer. One among of the many questions is the role of the steward. Thought, I believe that the charter proposal addresses many of the key points the definition of the
steward should be in the work list.
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Bringing the community together: I think the important point is that we can get the community together and we work together towards a common goal.
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Participation to the WG: I don’t quite understand the cost structure now. For instance, Nokia is a member of Eclipse. Do we have to invest also to a membership of this WG to be able to participate? What about non-corporate, non-steward identified,
or non-governmental entities and individuals?
Of course, a FAQ from Eclipse can answer the practical and Eclipse related questions. However, I’m a bit worried that we are not being fair to Eclipse by leaving Eclipse alone with working on the charter. I’m concerned that a hub-and-spoke
model may have scalability issues going forward. I wonder if a practical working session would be needed to identify and iron out the outstanding questions remining in the charter.
Regards,
Jonne.
Jonne Soininen
Nokia
E-mail: jonne.soininen@xxxxxxxxx
