Skip to main content

Governance of the SCS community

Introduction​

The Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) provides standards for a range of cloud infrastructure types as well as a modular open-source reference implementation. The project is governed by the SCS Project Board.

Role of the SCS Project Board​

The role of the SCS Project Board is the overall governance of the SCS Community and Project. This happens together with the Forum SCS-Standards of the Open Source Business Alliance. To further underline this alignment, the Forum SCS-Standards is part of the SCS Project Board. The SCS Project Board itself is elected by the SCS Community.

Definitions​

SCS Project​

The SCS Project is the Open-Source project that consists of the software, documentation, documents, blog posts as well as the people ("SCS Community") working on this.

SCS Community​

The collective of people, companies, and organizations promoting the idea of the SCS Project as well as the people working on the various aspects.

SCS GitHub Organization​

The SCS GitHub Organization is this: https://github.com/sovereigncloudstack

Roles in the SCS GitHub Organization​

Members​

Joining the SCS GitHub Organization as a contributor results in being assigned the member role in the organization. Members are contributors or collaborators who:

  • Actively contribute to projects within the organization.
  • Have repository-specific access based on their contributions.
  • Are eligible to vote in elections and nominate candidates for the SCS Project Board.
  • Must adhere to the Code of Conduct.

Owners​

Members of the SCS Project Board are also designated as owners of the SCS GitHub organization. Owners have administrative privileges, including:

  • Managing organization-level settings.
  • Onboarding new members.
  • Enforcing compliance with governance and community standards.

This alignment ensures that governance roles in the SCS Project Board directly translate into operational responsibilities within the GitHub organization.

Joining the SCS GitHub Organization​

Since being part of the GitHub organization comes with a set of responsibilities, joining the SCS GitHub Organization can be done by:

  • being invited by the SCS Project Board
  • submitting a request to be onboarded as a member to the SCS Project Board
  • have existing members of the GitHub organization nominate you

One of these items is sufficient.

Actively contributing to one or several of the projects under the governance of the SCS project board should typically result in a membership. Please be aware of our Code of Conduct.

Election of the SCS Project Board​

Term​

The SCS Project Board is elected for the term of one year. Elections are done within the last six weeks of the calendar year.

Seats on the board​

The SCS Project Board contains five seats. One of these seats is filled by the delegate of the Forum SCS-Standards. The other four seats are voted upon.

Conflict of Interest and Organizational Diversity​

To ensure balanced representation and avoid conflicts of interest, no more than one seat on the SCS Project Board elected by the community may be held by individuals affiliated with the same organization, company, or employer at any given time. This limitation applies only to the elected seats, not to the seat filled by the delegate of the Forum SCS-Standards.

If two or more candidates from the same organization are among the top-ranked choices in an election:

  • Only the highest-ranked candidate from that organization will be elected.
  • The remaining seat(s) will be filled by the next highest-ranked candidate(s) from different organizations.

If an existing board member changes their organizational affiliation during their term, resulting in multiple board members from the same organization, one of the affected members must resign their seat. The affected members may mutually agree on who will resign. If no agreement can be reached within 30 days of the affiliation change, the member who received fewer votes in the most recent election will be required to resign. A replacement will be determined according to the most recent election results, selecting the next eligible candidate from a different organization.

Resignation​

Resignation can happen for several reasons, such as:

  • Elected member may sustainably no longer be willing or able to serve on the project board.
  • Elected member needs to resign due to conflict of interest (see above for organizational diversity rules).

When a board member resigns, the next eligible candidate from the last election will automatically join the board, if they accept it and does not conflict with the organizational diversity rules. In case no more candidates exist, the board will continue to exist with one fewer member. If the number of elected board members falls below three, an extraordinary election will be scheduled for the rest of the term. Resigned members are encouraged to suggest new candidates. The search for candidates should at least allow for two weeks and the election announced at least three weeks in advance of happening and run for a week.

Nominations​

Every person who is part of the Sovereign Cloud Stack GitHub organization can be nominated for the board. Likewise, one can nominate oneself. The nomination is done by adding the person with the required data to the file corresponding to the term in the "Community-Governance" folder in the Standards repository. Obviously, the person, that is to be nominated, should be asked before being added to the file.

Eligible for voting​

Every person who is a member of the GitHub organization "Sovereign Cloud Stack" is eligible for voting. In order to be able to vote an onboarding onto the Identity Management of the SCS community needs to happen.

Electoral management​

The voting process is governed by the Forum SCS-Standards. Voting is done using the Condorcet Internet Voting Service. This is the same system as is being used by the OpenInfra foundation.

Voting period​

The voting will be open for a week.

Announcement​

The voting will be announced on the scs-members mailing list as well as on the General & Announcements Matrix channel. Enlisted voters will receive e-mails to the email address used in the SCS community's Identity Management system.

Mechanisms​

Each eligible voter is asked to rank the candidates according to their priorities. The four favorite choices among all voters will be elected into the SCS Project Board. In case there are four or fewer nominees for the election, no formal vote will be conducted, and all nominees will be elected into the SCS Project Board.

Roles in the SCS Project Board​

Among the elected Project Board a spokesperson is nominated. The spokesperson is elected by a simple majority vote among the members of the project board. The spokesperson is elected for the whole term.

Version history​

  • Version 1 existed without major changes since 16.01.2025
  • Version 2 extends the detail of the SCS Project Board election by:
    • adding a section to avoid conflict of interest and ensure organizational diversity
    • adding a section to define the election mechanism if members of the board resign
    • specifying how to proceed when four or fewer candidates are nominated for the elections
    • using objective criteria (election results) for affiliation conflict resolution
    • defining a minimum quorum (3 elected members) for extraordinary elections