Governance/Foundation/Mission

The Foundation Mission: The OpenStack Foundation is an independent body providing shared resources to help achieve the OpenStack Mission by Protecting, Empowering, and Promoting OpenStack software and the community around it, including users, developers and the entire ecosystem.

Community wide goals the Foundation helps achieve:
 * Make OpenStack the ubiquitous cloud operating system
 * Deliver high quality software releases that companies can rely on to run their business
 * Ensure interoperability among OpenStack clouds
 * Nurture a healthy community, with broad participation and a sharp focus on the OpenStack Mission
 * Grow the ecosystem around OpenStack to strengthen the platform and provide opportunity
 * Build and protect the OpenStack brand to the benefit of the community's participants

Responsibilities
One of the Foundation's main purposes is to empower and coordinate the resources of the community effectively, providing leadership in key areas that are required to fulfill OpenStack's mission:
 * Development process and release management
 * Developer, user and ecosystem community management
 * Meet the needs of real world users by producing great software, and fostering their involvement in the community to provide feedback and direction
 * Brand management (PR & marketing, trademark policy)
 * Event management (Twice-annual Summit & Conference, meetups etc)
 * Legal affairs (CLA process and docs, trademark defense)

Protecting

 * The OpenStack software by ensuring it remains freely available by facilitating the open development process
 * The trademark
 * The core values of the OpenStack community, such as:
 * Respecting and appreciating the individuals and organizations who contribute in various ways, including testing, documenting, translating, integrating, extending, educating, financing, training, supporting, facilitating, evangelizing, designing, and art making.
 * Respecting the meritocracy which guides decision making.
 * Encouraging economic opportunity in the OpenStack ecosystem.

Empowering

 * Developers to write great code without overly painful process or tools in a way that takes care of the legal issues
 * Developers by providing access to a set of reference platforms, including for large-scale testing
 * Users to have access to great software and provide feedback and input on the direction
 * Community members of all sorts to organize events, information, discussions and other activities and resources
 * Companies to build a powerful and profitable ecosystem and marketplace around the software that creates new business opportunities and feeds the long-term health of OpenStack
 * Users, by educating them on the best uses for the OpenStack software

Promoting

 * The software produced
 * The developers producing it
 * The users using it
 * The marketplace of businesses built with or around the software