[openstack-dev] [openstack-tc] use of the word certified

Russell Bryant rbryant at redhat.com
Fri Jun 6 19:44:16 UTC 2014


On 06/06/2014 03:29 PM, Doug Hellmann wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Anita Kuno <anteaya at anteaya.info> wrote:
>> So there are certain words that mean certain things, most don't, some do.
>>
>> If words that mean certain things are used then some folks start using
>> the word and have expectations around the word and the OpenStack
>> Technical Committee and other OpenStack programs find themselves on the
>> hook for behaviours that they didn't agree to.
>>
>> Currently the word under discussion is "certified" and its derivatives:
>> certification, certifying, and others with root word "certificate".
>>
>> This came to my attention at the summit with a cinder summit session
>> with the one of the cerficiate words in the title. I had thought my
>> point had been made but it appears that there needs to be more
>> discussion on this. So let's discuss.
>>
>> Let's start with the definition of certify:
>> cer·ti·fy
>> verb (used with object), cer·ti·fied, cer·ti·fy·ing.
>> 1. to attest as certain; give reliable information of; confirm: He
>> certified the truth of his claim.
>> 2. to testify to or vouch for in writing: The medical examiner will
>> certify his findings to the court.
>> 3. to guarantee; endorse reliably: to certify a document with an
>> official seal.
>> 4. to guarantee (a check) by writing on its face that the account
>> against which it is drawn has sufficient funds to pay it.
>> 5. to award a certificate to (a person) attesting to the completion of a
>> course of study or the passing of a qualifying examination.
>> Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/certify
>>
>> The issue I have with the word certify is that it requires someone or a
>> group of someones to attest to something. The thing attested to is only
>> as credible as the someone or the group of someones doing the attesting.
>> We have no process, nor do I feel we want to have a process for
>> evaluating the reliability of the somones or groups of someones doing
>> the attesting.
>>
>> I think that having testing in place in line with other programs testing
>> of patches (third party ci) in cinder should be sufficient to address
>> the underlying concern, namely reliability of opensource hooks to
>> proprietary code and/or hardware. I would like the use of the word
>> "certificate" and all its roots to no longer be used in OpenStack
>> programs with regard to testing. This won't happen until we get some
>> discussion and agreement on this, which I would like to have.
>>
>> Thank you for your participation,
>> Anita.
> 
> I didn't see that summit session. Is someone claiming that a driver is
> being certified? Or asking that someone certify a driver?

The Cinder project has been using that terminology for testing of their
drivers for a while.  It's something worth discussing, though.  Maybe we
can put it on the agenda for an upcoming TC meeting?

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Cinder/certified-drivers

-- 
Russell Bryant



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