Candidacy for OpenStack Technical Committee

My name is Amrith Kumar, I've been around OpenStack since a little
before the IceHouse release (about 3 years ago). During this time,
I've worked mostly on Trove, and a little bit on other projects but
mostly in service of Trove. I've also served as a member of the
Stewardship Working Group, and have participated in other activities
that seek to foster and encourage participation in OpenStack
(mentorship, for example).

I submit my candidacy for election to the TC at what I believe we will
look back upon as a point of inflection in the OpenStack trajectory.

Trove, the project that I've been most closely associated with, and
some other projects that are not part of the 'core OpenStack' have
faced a decline in participation. To be clear, I don't intend to place
blame on the 'big tent' proposal; I think the approach proposed in the
big tent was rational and needed at the time. The old way of doing
things was unsustainable and the new model is much more
scalable. However, it is an observable fact that the non-core projects
have seen a decline in participation as more corporate focus is placed
on the few core projects.

At this point of inflection, I think the TC should focus more of its
attention on three specific things that I promise to champion if
elected to the TC. I describe each in turn below.

I would like to make it easier for newcomers to OpenStack to
participate in the project, and I will make this a priority on the
Technical Committee. I have over the past few years done several
things in this area including talks at universities, presentations at
meetups, blogging and other things that aim to simplify this and make
the 'newcomer experience' a lot better. This is something I promise to
continue if elected to the TC.

A significant part of my motivation for running for election for the
TC is based on what was discussed at a leadership training for TC
members that I attended in Ann Arbor last year.

I'm happy to see that the TC has taken a more assertive position on
defining a vision, something which was discussed at length, and I
believe long overdue. I have long advocated that the TC should take a
more assertive and prescriptive approach towards the technical
decisions that it makes, and this is something I promise to bring to
the TC if elected.

I'm a strong proponent of allowing projects to make the right
technical decisions for their own areas, but still see the value in a
central governance structure. A part of the evolution of OpenStack
that I welcome is the recent move to take positive action on the
Golang issue, and to get work going to allow projects to choose a
language other than Python.

Finally, I believe that the TC is in need of some 'new voices' and I
promise to bring a new and different perspective to the deliberations
of the TC.

Thanks,

-amrith