Abstain

Unfortunately I missed the "Joint CNCF TOC/Kubernetes Steering Committee" meeting. But I talked to some folks afterwards to fill me in.

Overall, I'd like to avoid setting precedent that a project unable to generate consensus within the Kubernetes community, can bypass the community by going straight to the CNCF.
While that may not be what happened here, k3s feels very similar to Kind (https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kind) and minikube (https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube) both of which are Kubernetes sub-projects.
I would like to to see k3s follow the same approach as those projects and apply to become a k8s sub-project first, rather than a standalone CNCF sandbox project.
This would ensure consistency, and give me confidence that Kubernetes experts have reviewed the project. Even if the k8s community ultimately says no, it wouldn't mean automatic no for a stand alone CNCF project, but would provide valuable insight for a CNCF application.
While I realize that building technical consensus is hard, especially in a project as large as Kubernetes, I believe doing so is critical for healthy communities.

Why not vote "-1"? The revised CNCF Sandbox project guidelines lower the bar for sandbox, making it a *tool* that can be used by anyone who needs a neutral place to host IP and collaborate on new projects with minimal overhead rather then a stepping stone towards incubation/graduation. This lets the TOC and CNCF SIGs to be more discriminating for incubation/graduation projects (only accept projects at that level that "makes sense in the CNCF ecosystem") while allowing the sandbox to serve as a test bed for innovation.