Open Stack

Jesse Pretorius wrote:
> I think that perhaps something that shouldn't be lost site of is that
> the users using the EC2 API are using it as-is. The only commitment that
> needs to be made is to maintain the functionality that's already there,
> rather than attempt to keep it up to scratch with newer functionality
> that's come into EC2.
> 
> The stackforge project can perhaps be the incubator for the development
> of a full replacement which is more up-to-date and interacts more like a
> translator. Once it's matured enough that the users want to use it
> instead of the old EC2 API in-tree, then perhaps deprecation is the
> right option.
> 
> Between now and then, I must say that I agree with Sean - perhaps the
> best strategy would be to make it clear somehow that the EC2 API isn't a
> fully tested or up-to-date API.

Right, there are several dimensions in the issue we are discussing.

- I completely agree we should communicate clearly the status of the
in-tree EC2 API to our users.

- Deprecation is a mechanism by which we communicate to our users that
they need to evolve their current usage of OpenStack. It should not be
used lightly, and it should be a reliable announcement. In the past we
deprecated things based on a promised replacement plan that never
happened, and we had to un-deprecate. I would very much prefer if we
didn't do that ever again, because it's training users to ignore our
deprecation announcements. That is what I meant in my earlier email. We
/can/ deprecate, but only when we are 99.9% sure we will follow up on that.

- The supposed "35% of our users" are actually more 44% of the user
survey respondents replying "yes" when asked if they ever used the EC2
API in their deployment of OpenStack. Given that it's far from being up
to date or from behaving fully like the current Amazon EC2 API, it's
fair to say that those users are probably more interested in keeping the
current OpenStack EC2 API support as-is, than they are interested in a
new project that will actually make it better and/or different.

- Given legal uncertainty about closed APIs it might make *legal* sense
to remove it from Nova or at least mark it deprecated and freeze it
until that removal can happen. Projects in Stackforge are, by
definition, not OpenStack projects, and therefore do not carry the same
risk.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)