Open Stack

On 09/07/2016 11:43 AM, Davanum Srinivas wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 12:35 PM, Ian Cordasco <sigmavirus24 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Monty Taylor <mordred at inaugust.com>
>> Reply: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>
>> Date: September 7, 2016 at 10:58:52
>> To: openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org>
>> Subject:  Re: [openstack-dev] [all] Timeframe for future elections & "Release stewards"
>>
>>> On 09/07/2016 10:43 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> As you probably know by now, starting with the Boston event in 2017, the
>>>> Summit will happen further away from the release day and more around the
>>>> middle of the next development cycle. You can find more info on the
>>>> rationale for that at [1] and [2] if interested, this is not the topic
>>>> of this email.
>>>>
>>>> One interesting side-effect is that since the timing of the election
>>>> period (for PTL and TC positions) is defined in the TC charter[3]
>>>> relative to the *Summit*, it means that (unless we change this) we'll
>>>> now run elections to renew PTL and TC positions in the middle of the
>>>> cycle. Crazy, right ? That's what I first thought. But after discussing
>>>> it with various people, this is not as crazy as it sounds.
>>>>
>>>> First, the current election timing is not perfect -- we change PTLs in
>>>> the middle of the design summit prep, with old PTLs making Design Summit
>>>> space requests that will affect their successor. It's not as if there
>>>> was a perfect timing for doing elections.
>>>>
>>>> Second, release cycles are longer than 6 months. They actually start a
>>>> few months before actual development starts, with discussions on next
>>>> cycle priorities and Design Summit prep. They continue a few months
>>>> after release, with critical stable branch backports and communication
>>>> about landed features. So they are one year-long, overlapping cycles
>>>> (like explained on the diagram at [4]). With that in mind, the PTL/TC
>>>> election actually would happen just before the start of the start of the
>>>> requirements-gathering pre-development phase of the next development
>>>> cycle, which makes a lot of sense.
>>>>
>>>> Now, the main drawback of holding elections in the middle of a
>>>> development cycle is that you don't want to introduce a discontinuity in
>>>> leadership in that development cycle. To mitigate that, we propose the
>>>> introduction of a new role, the "release steward", which would be
>>>> attached to the release cycle. That person (who may or may not double as
>>>> PTL) would be responsible for a complete release cycle on a given
>>>> project team, from requirements gathering phase to post-release
>>>> bugfix-backport phase. A sort of per-cycle release liaison on steroids.
>>>>
>>>> Since development cycles overlap, there would be two active release
>>>> stewards at all times. This would help with the awkward situation where
>>>> the PTL ends up having to think about the next cycle and prepare the
>>>> Design Summit (or PTG) while still being knee-deep juggling with feature
>>>> freeze exceptions, getting the current release out of the door, and
>>>> coordinating early critical fixes stable backports. Those two jobs could
>>>> be held by two different people.
>>>>
>>>> Now, some teams (especially those doing intermediary releases) may want
>>>> to use the same super-human to handle everything (PTL, release steward,
>>>> release+1 steward), and some others might use two or three humans to
>>>> spread the load. That's up to them. But once designated by the
>>>> newly-elected PTL, the release steward would be responsible for the full
>>>> release cycle and would not be displaced by the next PTL 6 months later.
>>>> One year being a long time, if a steward needs to step down, the
>>>> currently-active PTL would appoint someone else to finish the job.
>>>>
>>>> With this new concept I think we can get the best of both worlds, and
>>>> keep the election period as currently defined in the charter (rather
>>>> than having to change it). The PTLs we will elect in the coming weeks
>>>> won't be renewed before April, 2017 -- while Pike development will start
>>>> in February.
>>>>
>>>> I know this can all be a bit confusing, so feel free to reach out to me
>>>> with questions on this.
>>>
>>> I think this is a great idea. Having a person be on point for a
>>> particular release from inception to whenever we stop caring about it
>>> makes a lot of sense.
>>
>> I agree. Regardless of how PTL elections end up working, I think we should definitely move forward with this "Release Stewards" concept. It sounds like an excellent idea.
> 
> Also since "Release Stewards" are nominated by PTL, projects can just
> start using this concept right away (as it's not an elected position).
> +1 from me.
> 
>> One question, should "Release Stewards" also be members of the Stable Team for that project or will they become members of the Stable Team? It seems like there should be a relationship there to me (although maybe not a strictly enforced one).

I think they should be. If they are the Steward of the Pike release,
then I personally think that's a position that's attached to the
lifecycle of the release, not a fixed period of time - even though over
time it's likely more the stable team driving things and less the
Release Steward.

But, as usual, that may just be me.