Open Stack

On 12/13/2013 09:53 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> TL;DR:
> Incubation is getting harder, why not ask efforts to apply for a new
> program first to get the visibility they need to grow.
> 
> Long version:
> 
> Last cycle we introduced the concept of "Programs" to replace the
> concept of "Official projects" which was no longer working that well for
> us. This was recognizing the work of existing teams, organized around a
> common mission, as an integral part of "delivering OpenStack".
> Contributors to programs become ATCs, so they get to vote in Technical
> Committee (TC) elections. In return, those teams place themselves under
> the authority of the TC.
> 
> This created an interesting corner case. Projects applying for
> incubation would actually request two concurrent things: be considered a
> new "Program", and give "incubated" status to a code repository under
> that program.
> 
> Over the last months we significantly raised the bar for accepting new
> projects in incubation, learning from past integration and QA mistakes.
> The end result is that a number of promising projects applied for
> incubation but got rejected on maturity, team size, team diversity, or
> current integration level grounds.
> 
> At that point I called for some specific label, like "Emerging
> Technology" that the TC could grant to promising projects that just need
> more visibility, more collaboration, more crystallization before they
> can make good candidates to be made part of our integrated releases.
> 
> However, at the last TC meeting it became apparent we could leverage
> "Programs" to achieve the same result. Promising efforts would first get
> their mission, scope and existing results blessed and recognized as
> something we'd really like to see in OpenStack one day. Then when they
> are ready, they could have one of their deliveries apply for incubation
> if that makes sense.
> 
> The consequences would be that the effort would place itself under the
> authority of the TC. Their contributors would be ATCs and would vote in
> TC elections, even if their deliveries never make it to incubation. They
> would get (some) space at Design Summits. So it's not "free", we still
> need to be pretty conservative about accepting them, but it's probably
> manageable.
> 
> I'm still weighing the consequences, but I think it's globally nicer
> than introducing another status. As long as the TC feels free to revoke
> Programs that do not deliver the expected results (or that no longer
> make sense in the new world order) I think this approach would be fine.
> 
> Comments, thoughts ?
> 

I don't have much to add right now beyond +1.

I think the need for being able to bless an emerging project by
acknowledging that its mission and scope are a compliment to OpenStack
is clear and this seems like a good way to accomplish that.

-- 
Russell Bryant