# Governance for EESSI

## Need for governance
* Code of conduct
* Production quality EESSI comes with a lot of (non-contractual!) obligations and demands
* Need to work towards long term strategy for sustainability
* Need to "steer the ship" in terms of priorities

## What models are out there?

* See https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/guide-to-open-source-project-governance-models-overview
* Do-ocracy - those who do make the choices
* Founder-leader - EasyBuild is in that kind realm
* Self-appointing council or board - can be hard to break in
* Electoral - time-consuming, "elections do not generally cause turnover unless a project has explicitly codified term limits"
* Foundation-backed - can be high overhead for contributors, "In other cases, the foundation manages some matters, such as trademarks and events, and other governance structures in the project(s) control other matters, such as code approval."
* Right now we are pretty much a do-ocracy
* Probable need a short term model so that we can work towards a long term model
* Ultimately there is some level of responsibility to EESSI users, in particular contributor sites that adopt it, in the long term we need to factor this in

## What do we need the governance to do for us

* Already have requests for MoUs, need a way to handle this kind of stuff
* Need help navigating the EU funding landscape since we are likely to rely on it
* Need to figure out how to make ourselves "indispensable" so both EESSI and it's users can plan for a 10 year horizon

## What should the mix be between contributors and external guidance

* How to balance the weight of EESSI core team, contributors, users, funders, interested parties,...
* Everyone right now is a volunteer, governance shouldn't mean we get bosses, we're primarily looking for advice not orders

## Notes meeting 2022-07-01

### Attendees

- Alan
- Thomas
- Kenneth
- Caspar
- Bob
- Terje

### Notes

- Alan was asked if EESSI could sign an MoU
- but there's no legal entity who could sign that for EESSI
- we expect to get more requests like this going forward...
- we also need to start thinking about long-term funding (after initial 4-5 years)
- various possibilities there, both in EU and national
- position us as research infrastructure (ERIC)
- set up a Steering Committee as a starting point
- temporary setup to held decide on how to form legal entity
- "technical" SC vs "management" SC (planning, ...)
- maybe "Advisory Committee" is better (we don't want bosses, but guidance)
- money set aside in MultiXscale project for consultancy w.r.t. goverance/legal stuff
- Linux Foundation is worth considering, but may not be the best move in the long run
- PRACE AISBL as an example?
- EESSI is currently a "do-operative"
- but commercial interests will start playing too
- SLAs are good and probably needed, but likely requiring much more commitment than a MoU
- we might be required to answer the question "how safe/reliable EESSI is to use?" without saying "read the code" or "just trust us"
- Also, how do we limit liability?
- Advisory Committee
- tasks: long-term strategy, build up organisation, networking
- people: technical?, science?, funders?, law background (licensing issues, operational/SLA issues)? (5+2)
- what's in for them to do it? having some investment in EESSI, just being interested in EESSI
- What happened to Jaco's efforts?
- was in touch with UoG CTO (Anke ...)
- unclear whether anything actually happened in the end
- Who could be invited for EESSI Advisory Committee?
- Jaco (Dell) - commercial interests
- Ewald (HPC-UGent)
- Valeriu Codreanu (HPC group leader) or Walter Lioen (manager of the compute division) (SURF)
- someone from CECAM (via Alan)
- someone from Nordics (via Terje/Thomas) => maybe Francis Medeiros?
- someone technical from our inner circle
- someone from UoG (CTO via Jaco)
- How do we communicate with the AC?
- startup workshop?
- EESSI monthly update
- 2-3 yearly meetings (need to be well prepared: could follow the NeIC board setup)
- Also set up Technical Committee?
- us 6 + someone from HPCNow!
- PI role in MultiXscale?
- Slovenia
- political choice, seems to have worked well
- we don't expect them to tell others what to do in detail
- waiting for request from EU for grant agreement (between EU and project PI)
- they may have some requests for changes based on reviews
- collaboration agreement between project partners
- likely a longer process, maybe some time into the project
- announcement of acceptance MultiXscale project at next EESSI meeting
- decision is official and public, so should be fine
- just announce that project is accepted, keep details vague
- do separate presentation in Sept/Oct to outline all the details w.r.t. planning, etc.
- eessi-hpc.org currently is perhaps a bit too restrictive (due to HPC)
- eessi-hpc.org is controlled by Jaco/Dell
- Alan also bought eessi.io and eessi.science domains that we can control
- Terje also registered eessi-infra.org
- should be discussed with Jaco
- we also need "official" contact email addresses
- homework
- Bob/Henk-Jan: talk to Jaco about setting up Advisory Committee