In a very interesting segment, the founder of SiliconANGLE and host of theCUBE, John Furrier, welcomed Eileen Evans and Monty Taylor. Evans serves as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for HP Cloud, as well as being a founding board member of the OpenStack Foundation. Taylor, a Distinguished Technologist with HP, is also a founding board member of the OpenStack Foundation as well as serving on the technology committee.

Both Taylor and Evans marveled at the number of attendees at this year’s Summit, citing the nearly 100 percent increase in attendance over last year as proof of significant change, expansion and growth. Taylor reflected on the very first OpenStack meeting in 2010 that was able to be held in a single room at an Austin Marriott.

Before the conversation went too much further, Furrier asked the two board members if they could shed light on a first-of-its-kind conclave held the previous night between the 13 members of the OpenStack Technology Committee and the 24 members of the Board of Directors. “We sat down to try and figure out how to present OpenStack to the world,” Taylor explained. The two groups needed to discuss the convergence of issues like trademark and legal implications with technical ramifications. “It has to be a collaboration between the two,” he said. “It went smashingly well.”

Evans echoed Taylor’s sentiments and stated, “I think there is an excellent working relationship amongst the members of the board.” The purpose of the meeting was, according to her, to continue to move OpenStack forward while ensuring its steadfast focus on remaining a meritocracy.

Watch the interview in its entirety here:

 .

In the early days, Furrier admitted that he and other analysts were skeptical of the entire endeavor of OpenStack. Big players, like HP and IBM, threatened the legitimacy of the open source project. Even today, Furrier asked if the presence of such large entities as a de facto leader in the space was necessary for the project’s future or if OpenStack could win with the community.

Answering immediately, Taylor stated, “I think it has to win with the community.” The model has, according to him, worked well thus far. None of the larger players have yet tried to assert dominance over any particular area. “It’s working well.”

“HP was the first large Enterprise company that offered indemnity around Linux,” Evans noted. “And we are doing the same thing now around OpenStack. That is important. We are standing behind the community.”

In the few short years the project has existed, it has gone through fairly significant upheaval, causing Evans to accede that, going forward, there are tactical tasks that must be accomplished. “We need to have some changes to the DevCore,” he began. “We will need changes to the by-laws. The project has grown so significantly.”

“We have to find the balance,” Taylor offered. “It’s really important for our users that we have a trademark that means something.” The balance he mentioned lies in providing a trustworthy trademark that isn’t so restrictive that it precludes design and builds within the OpenStack project.

Rounding out the conversation, Furrier asked both Evans and Taylor to share what it is about this time and this place that is so very exciting and unique from a technological perspective.

This point in history, according to Evans, represents a shift in both technology and industry. “I think Cloud is in its early days. [The OpenStack Foundation] is primed to grow it into a success.”

Taylor chose not to explain how this day is singularly unique, but instead looked to a similar past to express the major paradigm shift we currently stand before. “We are in a similar place that we were in with the invention of the PC,” he mused. “Before that, people found it hard to get their hands on a PC, but when it happened, it was an explosion. We are now seeing that same see change.”

photo credit: pierofix via photopin cc