I'm impressed by the speed at which you've forked the project and brought up the new technical infrastructure. You mention that you are 'interim tech lead'; what does interim mean in this context, and what is the governance structure for future leadership (and presumably your replacement)? Will OpenTofu have a self-selecting board? Or will it be democratic by vote, and if so, have suffrage by membership, participation or something else? Maybe top-down BDFL appointed by the Linux Foundation?
I am curious because your Manifesto states that as a result of LF stewardship the 'community governs the project'. The LF is massive, with a much more extensive portfolio than most people think, and influential far beyond its staffing would indicate. There is a great range of governance models and community norms across its projects, and, as with many things in FOSS leadership, no easy answer to the question of which the best option is among those.
As tech lead, it is your responsibility to choose what model and venue OpenTofu will adopt to fulfil its promises sustainably; I hope and imagine that you have been given the authority to make these choices decisively. The stewardship of the Linux Foundation is not an automatic guarantee of success, and the resources that the LF can provide are significant, unusual in FOSS, and very difficult to use - and concerningly easy to abuse unless directed by clear leadership. I wish you all the best of luck in this challenging but exciting task, and am curious to discover how you intend to take this project forward into the future.
The initiative will have a steering committee composed of individuals from the main backing and involved companies and projects.
As interim technical lead I'm mostly responsible for the technical side of things and getting the project up and running in this first phase. This also includes the feature development process and similar things. Interim means "until we figure out the exact details of the governance process", so a couple of weeks, most likely.
Representatives of the main organizations backing the initiative are collaborating with the LF to iron out the governance model. In practice, all of this is a collaborative process among the main backers.
The initial steering committee has already been selected and was to my knowledge a prerequisite to even being accepted to the LF. Currently each of the following organizations has a single seat: Gruntworks, Harness, Spacelift, env0, Scalr. There are free seats reserved for future joinees.
I appreciate the detailed response; thank you! It is wonderful that the governance structure is being thought out early. The best of luck to you and your colleagues in this endeavour!
I am curious because your Manifesto states that as a result of LF stewardship the 'community governs the project'. The LF is massive, with a much more extensive portfolio than most people think, and influential far beyond its staffing would indicate. There is a great range of governance models and community norms across its projects, and, as with many things in FOSS leadership, no easy answer to the question of which the best option is among those.
As tech lead, it is your responsibility to choose what model and venue OpenTofu will adopt to fulfil its promises sustainably; I hope and imagine that you have been given the authority to make these choices decisively. The stewardship of the Linux Foundation is not an automatic guarantee of success, and the resources that the LF can provide are significant, unusual in FOSS, and very difficult to use - and concerningly easy to abuse unless directed by clear leadership. I wish you all the best of luck in this challenging but exciting task, and am curious to discover how you intend to take this project forward into the future.