Preamble
The purpose of this document is to articulate the motivation behind the organizational structure of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF).
In order to ensure that all perspectives are heard, the organization is structured into teams, where each of the team lead(s) sits on the leadership team and serves as the RESF Board of Advisors. This provides a clear and transparent structure to ensure that discussions and decisions can be raised within the appropriate context of the organization by empowering each team to make decisions relevant to that specific team and also facilitates the bi-directional communication between all of the teams and leadership.
About the RESF
The Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF) is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) formed in Delaware (file number 4429978). The RESF was founded and is owned by Gregory Kurtzer and is backed by an advisory board of trusted individuals and team leads from the Rocky Linux community.
The decision to bootstrap the RESF as a PBC and create the current organizational structure was made collectively by the board of advisors after significant deliberation. History has shown that there are always loopholes for bad actors no matter what the entity type is. This is why we feel that the integrity, accountability, and transparency of the people involved in the project is the most critical aspect for determining the long term sustainability and viability of any project.
Furthermore the RESF mitigates the risk of takeover by any one individual or external entity by implementing a series of checks and balances. These exist in terms of access control policies utilizing the principle of least privilege and separation of duty. This means that no one person or team has the ability to enact major decisions, or implement any forced changes without input from the other groups, ensuring that everyone has a voice and the project as a whole can not be controlled or co-opted by a bad actor.
We believe we have an organizational structure that ensures the long term viability of the RESF and all hosted projects (e.g. Rocky Linux) for the public benefit of the open community of individuals and enterprises.
Structure
The general structure of the organization consists of a flat hierarchy of teams with a leadership team. Each team will have one or more of the following roles:
- Team Lead: The primary responsible lead for that team
- Team Deputy: Support and second level leader for the team
- Team Members: Individuals who are part of and contributing to the team
All teams are structured exactly the same but report into the “Leadership Team” and all Team Leads are represented into the Leadership Team as Team Members. This creates a dynamic that allows for 100% team involvement in all leadership discussions, initiatives, and decisions and creates a culture of transparency across the organization.
For any team that does not have a deputy, or where someone is the lead for multiple teams, please note that we are actively working with the community to identify and promote capable individuals to fill those roles. If you feel you’re a good fit, the best way to be considered is to spend time working with the team in question. Reach out to the relevant team lead to discuss how you can get involved.
If there are any concerns with this structure, we have an open door perspective and wish to encourage feedback, both to the individual team leads, as well as directly to the RESF leadership team.
Leadership
The Leadership team is responsible for the overall direction and coordination of the various teams within the RESF including organization requirements, legals, finances, partnerships, sponsorships, etc.
- Executive Director: Gregory Kurtzer
- Project Manager: Brian Clemens
Community
The Community team moderates, engages, and supports users across all social media and discussion platforms. This team is also responsible for organizing community events, creating programs, celebrating community successes, and working with other teams to support community initiatives.
- Team Leads:
- (Pro tempore) Brian Clemens
Design
Design produces and guides the visual styling and branding of the RESF.
- Team Leads:
- Michael Kinder
Documentation
The Documentation team is responsible for ensuring that public facing documentation is accurate, accessible, and engaging, curating engaging and dynamic content that promotes learning within the community. They are also responsible for hosting brown bags and Principal Engineering Talks, where subject matter experts present technical deep dives.
- Team Leads:
- Wale Soyinka
- Team Deputies:
- Steven Spencer
Infrastructure
The Infrastructure team is responsible for the architecture, configuration, and maintenance of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation’s infrastructure. This team works to ensure the availability and reliability of the build infrastructure supporting development and other reliant properties.
- Team Leads:
- Neil Hanlon
- Taylor Goodwill
Release Engineering
The Release Engineering team handles and oversees the overall package building from the base operating system to SIGs. The package team also presents themselves as sponsors and mentors for those who are submitting packages or learning how to package an RPM to have their packages in extra repositories, such as supported SIGs.
- Team Leads:
- Louis Abel
- Mustafa Gezen
- Team Deputies:
- Sherif Nagy
- Skip Grube
Security
The Security team works with each team to ensure the integrity, confidentiality, assurance, and compliance of data and services.
- Team Leads:
- Rob Felsburg
- Scott Shinn
Special Interest Groups
SIGs enable extensions to the core of Rocky Linux to facilitate special use cases including everything from security, embedded applications, high performance computing, scientific research, home desktop environments, and more.
- Team Leads:
- Gregory Kurtzer
Testing
The Testing team maintains and develops all of the continuous integration efforts of the RESF.
- Team Leads:
- Chris Stackpole
Web
The Web team maintains and develops all of the websites under the RESF purview.
- Team Leads:
- Michael Kinder
Previous Leadership
Though we are immensely grateful for all those who have contributed to the Rocky Linux project, being a lead or deputy lead is especially time and effort intensive. Those who have done so are recognized here.
- Benjamin Agner - Security Team Lead, December 2020 - January 2023
- Trevor Cooper - Testing Team Lead, June 2021 - June 2022
- Hayden Young - Web and Design Team Lead, December 2020 - October 2021
- Jordan Pisaniello - Community Team Lead, December 2020 - October 2021
- R. Leigh Hennig - Director of Operations, December 2020 - September 2021
For references, please contact hello@rockylinux.org.