Open Stack

On 06/24/2015 03:42 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 11:28:59AM +0100, Nikola Đipanov wrote:
>> Hey Nova,
>>
>> I'll cut to the chase and keep this email short for brevity and clarity:
>>
>> Specs don't work! They do nothing to facilitate good design happening,
>> if anything they prevent it. The process layered on top with only a
>> minority (!) of cores being able to approve them, yet they are a prereq
>> of getting any work done, makes sure that the absolute minimum that
>> people can get away with will be proposed. This in turn goes and
>> guarantees that no good design collaboration will happen. To add insult
>> to injury, Gerrit and our spec template are a horrible tool for
>> discussing design. Also the spec format itself works for only a small
>> subset of design problems Nova development is faced with.
>
> I'd like to see some actual evidence to backup a sweeping statement
> as "Specs dont work. They do nothing to facilitate good design happening,
> if anything they prevent it."
>

Here is actual evidence: my spec[1] for changing the console API has 
been approved twice (in Kilo and Liberty), then it was augmented by the 
API WG [2], the implementation has been in review for 6 months [3] and 
there is still no agreement on this API change.  I am not talking about 
implementation details but fundamental things that should be cleared out 
during the spec review.  So writing and reviewing this spec was pretty 
much a waste of time.

[1] 
http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/nova-specs/specs/liberty/approved/consolidate-console-api.html

[2] 
https://github.com/openstack/nova-specs/commit/12f85fcdc1797370f1a962cc9dc14cc634e22b1a

[3] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/148509/

-Rado