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On 08/15/2016 09:27 AM, Andrew Laski wrote:
> Currently in Nova we're discussion adding a "capabilities" API to expose
> to users what actions they're allowed to take, and having compute hosts
> expose "capabilities" for use by the scheduler. As much fun as it would
> be to have the same term mean two very different things in Nova to
> retain some semblance of sanity let's rename one or both of these
> concepts.
>
> An API "capability" is going to be an action, or URL, that a user is
> allowed to use. So "boot an instance" or "resize this instance" are
> capabilities from the API point of view. Whether or not a user has this
> capability will be determined by looking at policy rules in place and
> the capabilities of the host the instance is on. For instance an
> upcoming volume multiattach feature may or may not be allowed for an
> instance depending on host support and the version of nova-compute code
> running on that host.
>
> A host "capability" is a description of the hardware or software on the
> host that determines whether or not that host can fulfill the needs of
> an instance looking for a home. So SSD or x86 could be host
> capabilities.
> https://github.com/jaypipes/os-capabilities/blob/master/os_capabilities/const.py
> has a list of some examples.
>
> Some possible replacement terms that have been thrown out in discussions
> are features, policies(already used), grants, faculties. But none of
> those seemed to clearly fit one concept or the other, except policies.
>
> Any thoughts on this hard problem?

I know, naming is damn hard, right? :)

After some thought, I think I've changed my mind on referring to the 
adjectives as "capabilities" and actually think that the term 
"capabilities" is better left for the policy-like things.

My vote is the following:

GET /capabilities <-- returns a set of *actions* or *abilities* that the 
user is capable of performing

GET /traits <-- returns a set of *adjectives* or *attributes* that may 
describe a provider of some resource

I can rename os-capabilities to os-traits, which would make Sean Mooney 
happy I think and also clear up the terminology mismatch.

Thoughts?
-jay