introducing the OpenBMC technical oversight forum

[Patrick Williams]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 10:01:10PM -0400, Brad Bishop wrote:
> Hi Everyone
> 
> It was pointed out to me that my technical oversight forum introductory 
> email here:
> 
> https://lore.kernel.org/openbmc/20210927162528.tfh6igwuwef7rsk7@cheese/
> 
> had the unfortunate subject of "call for volunteers" and thus might not 
> have been read :-)  - so I am sending it again in what I hope
> is a more visible way.  Thanks!

I have a follow-on to this.

Recently the TOF began operating as according to the process Brad linked to
previously[1].  Some people may have seen an proposal[2,3] that I wrote and
wondered (among other thoughts):

   * What is an OTP / TOF issue about?
   * Am I allowed to interact with this?  How do I give feedback?
   * Is someone really thinking about deleting code in the project?

I want to give my thoughts to some of these questions.

a) OTP stands for "OpenBMC TOF Proposal".  The 'contract' discusses Github
   issues as the mechanism to alert the TOF that you would like to solicit an
   opinion or direction from the TOF, but the 'contract' doesn't really give
   details on how this works.  Based on our experience with issue#4, the TOF
   agreed that we needed a more concrete process and I am working on writing
   that up.

b) Anyone may give feedback to a TOF proposal and we all welcome and encourage
   it.  The TOF is not meant to be simply creating edicts for everyone else to
   follow, but instead is there to facilitate forward progress on technical
   designs and process improvements that we've often seen languish in the
   project.  Part of the "concrete process" will be guidelines on the best ways
   for any member of the community to provide this feedback.

c) We are not going to be deleting any code or recipes based on issue#4.  The
   TOF did agree that Meson is the best option for the project going forward,
   but that we need to work as a community to figure out how we get there.  I
   will be writing up the outcomes of the TOF discussion on issue#4.

d) The language in issue#4 was written in a way that may have been alarming.
   The TOF is new and we are figuring out, as a group, how we want to go about
   making improvements to the project.  The initial wording was, somewhat
   purposefully, chosen as the extreme end of how we could go about making
   changes and inspired quite a bit of useful discussion.  The biggest take-away
   was that, in general, the TOF should be communicating much more broadly
   before making sweeping changes; especially so given the newness.  As I
   mentioned under (a) and (c), we will be doing so in the near future.

Hopefully this gives some additional clarity and insight into what is going on.

1. https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/tof/contract.md
2. https://github.com/openbmc/technical-oversight-forum/issues/4
3. https://gerrit.openbmc-project.xyz/c/openbmc/docs/+/47732 
-- 
Patrick Williams
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