Open Stack

Hello all,

My name is Mike Perez, and I would like to be your next PTL for the OpenStack
block storage project Cinder.

I've been involved with the OpenStack community since October 2010. I'm
a senior developer for Datera which contributes to Linux Bcache and the
Linux-IO SCSI Target (LIO) in the kernel. Before that I was for seven years
a senior developer for DreamHost, working on their core products and storage in
their OpenStack public cloud.

Since November 2012 I've been a core developer for Cinder. Besides code
reviews, my main contributions include creating the v2 API, writing the v2 API
reference and spec docs and rewriting the v1 api docs. These are contributions
that I feel were were well thought out and complete. This is exactly how I 
would like to see the future of Cinder's additional contributions and would
like to lead the team that direction.

Instead of listing out the technical things that need to be improved in Cinder,
I would like to just talk about the things as PTL I would improve, which as
a side effect will allow the team to focus better on those technical issues.

Cinder is a small but a very effective team. Just like other projects, we need
more contributors to handle the requirements we get daily. First impressions
with contributors who are very excited to make their name in OpenStack can be
better helped by simple outreach in how they can be more effective with the
team. Guiding those contributors on what are the goals, and spending a little
time with them on how their interests can help those goals can go a long
way. Currently I feel like potential long term contributors are discouraged in
the time that they spend on evaluating what they could improve and to later
find out that their proposed improvements don't fit the project plans.

Focus itself can help contributors be effective in what's important. With the
support of the community, I would like to raise better guidelines on when
certain contributions are appropriate. With these community agreed guidelines,
it should be clearer on what is appropriate for review and what can be pushed
to the next release. With a better focus we can allow more time for features to
be more complete as mentioned earlier. Being complete means having confidence
something works. This can be ensured by trying changes before merge when
possible and not relying on tests alone, having performance results, and
actually having documentation so people know how to use new features. Release
notes are not enough to figure out new Cinder features.

I want to help the team realize more they can do in Cinder. I don't want to be
a single person people rely on in the project, but rather have this team help
me carry this project forward.

Thank you,
Mike Perez