Organization

The KernelCI Linux Foundation project is composed of an Advisory Board with representatives from all the member organizations as well as a Technical Steering Committee. A number of working groups are also focusing on particular areas of the project.

Mission Statement

To ensure the quality, stability and long-term maintenance of the Linux kernel by maintaining an open ecosystem around test automation practices and principles.

Objective: Maintainer buy-in

Drive for adoption of the project as an integral part of the Linux kernel development workflow by Linux kernel maintainers.

Key Results

• Maintainers require basic CI to pass before reviewing/accepting/merging
• Maintainers require test cases for acceptance of new features running in CI

Objective: Broad adoption

Promote participation from and adoption by kernel developers, and hardware manufacturers to use and improve the ecosystem.

Key Results

• Kernel developer community becomes dependent on good automation and CI
• Hardware manufacturers depend on KernelCI for production kernel quality
• Downstream kernels depend on upstream testing by KernelCI

Objective: Community collaboration

Join forces with existing testing projects and work towards a shared set of tooling and infrastructure.

Key Results

• Consolidated email reports going to kernel community: “one report to rule them all”
• Maintain a shared reporting and visualization service (kernelci.org) for upstream kernel testing
• Maintain a shared set of code and tools available for use by derivative projects

Objective: Membership growth

In order to achieve the mission and objectives, funding is needed. Funding comes primarily from project membership dues through the Linux Foundation.

Key Results

• Highlight member technologies
• New members: 1-2 per year
• Available funding for on-going project management, software development, infrastructure, support and community engagement initiatives

Project Documentation

These are the main documents defining how the project works:

Funding Charter

Thank you for your interest in joining the KernelCI Initiative (the “Directed Fund”), a directed fund project of The Linux Foundation (the “LF”). The purpose of the Directed Fund is to raise, budget and spend funds in support of the KernelCI Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC (the “Technical Project”), an open source project and individual series of LF Projects, LLC, a Delaware series limited liability company. The governance for the Directed Fund will operate pursuant to the Directed Fund Charter (the “Charter”), set forth as Exhibit B, and as amended in the future by the Governing Board with the approval of the LF. Please note that you must be a member of the LF to be eligible to participate as a member of the Directed Fund. For further information, visit the Corporate Membership page at the LF web site.

KernelCI_Participation_Agreement_and_Funding_Charter_20180913.pdf

Technical Charter

This charter (the “Charter”) sets forth the responsibilities and procedures for technical contribution to, and oversight of, the KernelCI Project, which has been established as KernelCI Project a Series of LF Projects, LLC (the “Project”). LF Projects, LLC (“LF Projects”) is a Delaware series limited liability company. All Contributors to the Project must comply with the terms of this Charter.

KernelCI_Project_Technical_Charter_20181107.pdf

Meetings

Several periodic meetings are scheduled for different purposes:

Community Weekly

• Every Thursday at 11:00 UTC on Jitsi

This is a public meeting for general discussions with anyone interested in the project. A shared document is used to keep the minutes and an agenda is prepared ahead of the meeting.

Open Hours

• EMEA/APAC: Every Thursday at 12:00 UTC on Jitsi

• EMEA/AMER: Every Wednesday at 18:00 UTC on Jitsi

The Open Hours are additional public meetings for informal technical discussions: new users who are getting started, kernel maintainers who want to have their tests run in KernelCI, kernel bugs reported by KernelCI, pending KernelCI code changes on GitHub etc. They help offload the community weekly to keep it more high-level and ensure all the people involved in the project can discuss the most important topics then.

The Wednesday Open Hours session is more convenient for people in the AMER timezones than the Thursday meetings, and things discussed on Wednesday should be shared during the Thursday meeting.

Advisory Board

• Every other Wednesday at 07:30 PST

The Advisory Board of members meet every other week to discuss things that matter from the point of view of the KernelCI Linux Foundation project: budget, membership, work packages, internships etc. It’s a private meeting as only member representatives can attend.

Technical Steering Committee

• Every second Thursday of the month at 10:00 UTC

The Technical Steering Committee meet once a month to discuss general technical topics that have a significant impact on the project. This is a private meeting as only elected TSC members can attend and they occasionally take part in decisions made by the advisory board.