Learnings from Sustainably Steering the Kubernetes Project

The Kubernetes Steering Committee plays a crucial role in overseeing the non-technical aspects of the Kubernetes project and making important project-wide decisions. In this session, we will divide our discussion into two parts: The 1st half will provide an in-depth overview of the committee, clarifying its scope and responsibilities. We will share valuable insights gained from the annual reports we request community groups to publish. Additionally, we will highlight our ongoing efforts to enhance the usefulness of these reports for the community. The 2nd half of the session will be dedicated to addressing questions from Kubernetes project constituents and the wider Cloud Native community at large. We will explore how you can leverage our learnings to enhance the governance of your own cloud-native projects. If you are eager to gain insights or have queries about the governance journey of the Kubernetes project, we encourage you to drop by and engage in an insightful discussion.

Transcript

1. Nabarun Pal, VMware Bob Killen, Google Learnings from Sustainably Steering the Kubernetes Project
2. New Members Maciej Szulik Senior Principal SE, Red Hat Poland Paco Xu 徐俊杰 Lead of Open Source, DaoCloud Shanghai, China Patrick Ohly Cloud Software Architect, Intel Bonn, Germany
3. Continuing Members Benjamin Elder Senior Engineer, Google Sunnyvale, CA, US Bob Killen Program Manager, Google Minneapolis, MN, US Nabarun Pal Staff Engineer, VMware Bengaluru, IN Stephen Augustus Head of Open Source, Cisco New York, NY, US
4. Maciej Szulik Senior Principal SE, Red Hat Poland Paco Xu 徐俊杰 Lead of Open Source, DaoCloud Shanghai, China Benjamin Elder Senior Engineer, Google Sunnyvale, CA, US Bob Killen Program Manager, Google Minneapolis, MN, US Nabarun Pal Staff Engineer, VMware Bengaluru, IN Stephen Augustus Head of Open Source, Cisco New York, NY, US Patrick Ohly Cloud Software Architect, Intel Bonn, Germany
5. THANK YOU! Tim Pepper Principal Engineer, VMware Portland, OR, US Carlos Tadeu Panato Jr Staff Engineer, Chainguard Berlin, DE Christoph Blecker Platform Architect, Red Hat Kelowna, BC, Canada
7. We are BIG! #5 OSS project by developer activity* #4 project by Pull Requests* Source: devstats Community Stats (Oct 2023) Contributors 83,000~ Org Members 1800~ Repos 354 Community Groups 34 * Ref: CNCF Velocity Report
8. What does steering do? “The Kubernetes Steering Committee is the governing body of the Kubernetes project, providing decision-making and oversight pertaining to the Kubernetes project bylaws, sub-organizations, and financial planning. The Steering Committee also defines the project values and structure.” git.k8s.io/steering/charter.md
10. What does steering do? • Through the chartering review process, delegate ownership of, responsibility for and authority over areas of the project to specific entities. • Define, evolve, and defend the non-technical vision / mission and the values of the project. • Charter and refine policy for defining new community groups, and establish transparency and accountability policies for such groups • Define and evolve project and group governance structures and policies. • Act as a final non-technical escalation point for any Kubernetes repository. • Request funds and other support from the CNCF (e.g. marketing, press, etc.) • Define and enforce requirements for community groups to be in good standing such as having an approved charter. git.k8s.io/steering/charter.md
11. What does steering really do?
12. What does steering really do?
13. What does steering really do? Plan for the long term sustainability of Kubernetes
14. Old Contributor Ladder Subproject Owner - Set priorities and approve proposals for subproject - Responsibility and leadership for entire repository/directory Approver - Approve contributions for acceptance - Highly experienced reviewer and contributor in subproject Reviewer - History of reviewing; reviews frequently - Authorship in subproject Member - Active contributor to the project - Sponsored by two Reviewers Non-member Contributors
15. Subproject Leads
16. New Contributor Ladder Subproject Owner - Subject matter expert for repository/directory - Highly experienced, aids in triage & mentorship for scoped area Approver - Approve contributions for acceptance - Highly experienced reviewer and contributor in subproject Reviewer - History of reviewing; reviews frequently - Authorship in subproject Member - Active contributor to the project - Sponsored by two Reviewers Non-member Contributors Subproject Lead - Set priorities and approve proposals for subproject - Responsibility and leadership for entire project across all repos/directories
17. Chair & Tech Lead Split Tech Lead (TL) role rolled up to Chair role if no TL was defined. Chair & Tech Lead (TL) are fully separate roles. Individuals MAY have both roles. After Before 1) Clarifies scope and responsibilities 2) Creates additional pathways to leadership 3) Encourages promoting more leads to distribute load
18. Chair & Tech Lead Split Tech Lead (TL) role rolled up to Chair role if no TL was defined. Chair & Tech Lead (TL) are fully separate roles. Individuals MAY have both roles. After Before Subproject Lead - Set priorities and approve proposals for subproject - Responsibility and leadership for entire project across all repos/directories SIG Lead - Chair: Day-to-day operations, cross-sig coordination, and group health - Tech Lead: Oversee technical direction of SIG, KEP & subproject approvals
19. Re-evaluate our groups, structure and requirements to align with current state of the project • Does the group continue to serve the goals of the project? • Is there still a need for it? it delivering on the goals of its charter? • Are there enough contributors or enough general interest to support the group? • Are there any reasonable changes that can be made to help it succeed? Revisiting our Groups & Requirements
20. Re-evaluate our groups, structure and requirements to align with current state of the project • Does the group continue to serve the goals of the project? • Is there still a need for it? it delivering on the goals of its charter? • Are there enough contributors or enough general interest to support the group? • Are there any reasonable changes that can be made to help it succeed? Revisiting our Groups & Requirements
21. Retiring User Groups Retired User Groups as a supported Kubernetes group • Created as a means for end users to collectively share feedback & develop best practices. • Came into existence at the same time the end user community was taking off in CNCF. • Kubernetes User Groups did not see any significant adoption (only 2 UGs created - VMware & Big Data) with users preferring to engage at the CNCF level. • Extra governance and policies that did not benefit the project.
22. Recently Retired Groups Retired SIGs • Usability • Service Catalog Retired WGs • Multitenancy • Reliability • IoT/Edge*
23. New* Groups SIG-etcd WG-LTS
24. New SIG: etcd! Some context
25. New SIG: etcd! Some context
26. New SIG: etcd! Some context Unanimous Approval! 🎉
27. WG LTS is back!
28. Code of Conduct Committee Elections
29. Annual Reports • Paint a complete project health picture for all of our community groups • Create a feedback loop between lead and the community groups at large, and the Steering Committee to move the project forward • Encourage dialogue about the wellbeing of the projects contributors and offer suggested guidance and coaching • Promote healthy, active, engaged community groups • Understand and have context before issues arise and celebrate wins where they should be highlighted • Help reshape project priorities at a high level
30. Annual Report Roundup 22 Groups filed the report 8 Groups didn’t file the report 2 New Groups 3 Groups spun down
31. Insights from the Annual Reports 2021 Annual Reports surfaced many SIGs that needed more OWNERS 2022 Several SIGs held mentor cohorts with more in 2023 2021 Significant amounts of burnout reported among leads & owners 2022 Burnout came up significantly less among leads & owners* 2021 Infrastructure costs increasing, projected to run out of funding in 2022 2022 Infrastructure costs critical
32. Insights from the Annual Reports 2021 Annual Reports surfaced many SIGs that needed more OWNERS 2022 Several SIGs held mentor cohorts with more in 2023 2021 Significant amounts of burnout reported among leads & owners 2022 Burnout came up significantly less among leads & owners* 2022 Infrastructure costs critical 2023 Infrastructure costs much better, Google, AWS, Fastly, SUSE OBS
33. Annual Reports: What is the future? We are taking a relook at the survey and redefining the questions to make the process and easier and have least overhead on our community leads.
35. Q & A
36. Where To Find Us • Public slack channel - #steering-committee • Mailing List • Public - steering@kubernetes.io (archive) • Private - steering-private@kubernetes.io • Meetings - First Monday at 9:30am PT • Please send an email to the mailing list if you want something to be discussed • File an issue in kubernetes/steering