[openstack-dev] [all] governance proposal worth a visit: Write down OpenStack principles

Hayes, Graham graham.hayes at hpe.com
Fri Sep 9 00:41:41 UTC 2016


On 08/09/2016 06:17, Chris Dent wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Sep 2016, Flavio Percoco wrote:
>
>> To be honest, I think you're expressing in a negative way something
>> that was thought in a positive way. The motivation to write the
>> principles down is to help the community with the help from the
>> community. No one is pushing anyone's beliefs on anyone. The idea to
>> write these principles down came out of a retrospective and someone
>> actually signed up for the work.
>
> I don't dispute that writing things down is a positive. It is a _huge_
> positive. What I'm disputing is the process with which it is happening.

Definitely - I am happy to see this put somewhere permanent.

> The writing is starting from a detailed proposal which, as txx said in
> his response to me above, presents itself as a document that is "meant
> to document *existing* principles that we operate under but never
> documented properly. It's not really about a new set of rules, or really
> changing anything".
>
> That is, it thinks of iself as an existing truth to be ratified.
>
> That would be great except that it is clear from the comments on the
> review and comments we've seen on this list and elsewhere that the
> truths are not universally held. If that's indeed the case, then we need
> to make adjustments to the process and the document to be inclusive and
> make greater progress on putting to bed some of the arguments we
> continually have, but fail to resolve.

This is my issue with the review. It states that these are the *current*
rules we live by. While these may be the rules we currently aspire to,
they are not what we live by, and this needs to be reflected.

>> I do not think the process is trying to push few ppl beliefs on the
>> community. Someone had to write something down first, right? Someone
>> had to kick this off somehow, right? I hardly believe we could have
>> collected a list of principles to reason about out of a mailing list
>> thread. These list is just a starting point for us to add/remove stuff
>> to it either on follow-up patches or the same one.
>
> As I said in my original posting, again above, and supported by ttx's
> response, the current proposal and its mode of presentation
> presuppose the principles. That starting point biases any future
> discussions. That's problematic if the end goal are principles that
> everyone actually understands and agrees.
>
>> As everything else we do in this community, this work is meant to
>> evolve and progress but again, we have to start somewhere. With what's
>> in that review, I believe it'll be easier for everyone to reason about
>> the document and the expectations of it.
>
> I hope we can agree to disagree, cordially. We seem to want the same
> positive things to happen, we are disagreeing on the process. I
> merely wish there had been more public engagement, sooner, and a
> greater sense of doubt and request for assistance in the document.

I would second the need for sooner engagement - my missing it may be my
own fault as I missed the Stewardship WG meeting this week due to
travelling, but I think a bigger cross section, earlier, is important.

When I look at the TC, there is a lot of people who have come from
larger or horizontal projects. These projects get a different point
of view to smaller projects. Only allowing these views after the draft
is finished makes getting their point of view more difficult, as the
document is more solid.

> The truth, for me, is that I agree with most of the things in the
> document. What is problematic for me is that I know a lot of people
> who will not. Because of the ordering of the process and the
> presumption of the document they will simply choose to ignore it and
> carry on with whatever other important things they've got going on.
>

This. The only reason I saw this review was I saw a tweet.



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