This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
Q:
What is the Open Cloud Manifesto?
A:
The Open Cloud Manifesto establishes a core set of principles to
ensure that organizations will have freedom of choice, flexibility, and
openness as they take advantage of cloud computing. While cloud
computing has the potential to have a positive impact on
organizations, there is also potential for lock-in and lost flexibility if
appropriate open standards are not identified and adopted.
Key members of the cloud community worked together to produce this
document and endorse it to establish a set of core principles around
the open cloud.
Q:
Why was the Open Cloud Manifesto created?
A:
Customers want to see cloud environments that give them at least as
open an environment as they have with today's IT choices. This
openness gives them choice, flexibility, speed, agility and a large pool
of skills to draw from. The Manifesto was written as a rallying cry for
the cloud computing community to come together around open
technologies.
Q:
Who supports the Manifesto?
A:
Q:
What should we assume about companies that are not listed as
supporters of this document? Does it mean that they are not
supportive of open cloud principles?
A:
We would strongly discourage anyone from reaching that conclusion.
There are many reasons why companies may not be listed. This moved
quickly and some companies may not have been reached or simply
didn't have time to make it through their own internal review process.
Any company or organization that would like to be added can follow
the "sign up" link on the web site to do so.) Some companies wanted
the document to endorse specific interfaces as open which was
outside the scope of this initial effort - and we did not have time to try
to broker agreement on a list. Some had specific concerns with the
document relative to its emphasis or priority. We look forward to more
input from customers and the community on whether the right next
step is further discussion of these broad objectives or the beginning
of specific work to deliver on some of these promises.
Q:
Does the Open Cloud Manifesto create a new organization of
standards body?
A:
No. The Open Cloud Manifesto establishes a set of core principles that
customers tell us are fundamental expectations of cloud computing
technology providers.
Q:
Now that the Open Cloud Manifesto has been released, what’s
next?
A:
The Open Cloud Manifesto is designed to initiate the conversation. It
should help customers focus on their requirements for openness and
help them ask the right set of questions to encourage vendors to work
towards open solutions. We fully expect that existing and new
standards organizations and communities will take the next step in
ensuring that the cloud is open. We have listed several means for
discussion in our resource section. In addition, the Open Cloud
Manifesto is published under the Creative Commons Attribution Share
Alike License 3.0. As a result, we encourage others to build on our
initial effort.
Q:
Are there any fees, dues, or legal agreements required for
participation?
A:
No, the open cloud manifesto is not an organization. There are no
fees, dues, or legal agreements to sign.
Q:
What is the advantage for me if I participate?
A:
Your participation associates your organization with fundamental
principles of open cloud computing.
Q:
Why did you start with just a few players instead of opening up to
anyone on the Internet to participate?
A:
This activity took only a few weeks and started as an idea with a small
group. Then it expanded to include others as it became clear that this
idea needed to be shared or formalized with the broader community.
This is typical of any creative process no matter if it is writing a
specification, or writing open source code. You start with something
and then ask others to participate. Once we had something that
seemed like a good start to a document, we decided that we would
release under a creative commons license so that the broader
community could build on it as they saw fit. However, the document
resonated with a wide variety of players who wanted to participate or
"sign-on" even though the document was ready to be released to the
community. So, we waited a couple of extra days to publish the
document, at their request, so that these companies could work
through their internal review processes and endorse it before it was
released.
