On 21/02/2019 11:13, Chris Dent wrote:
This is another set of questions for TC candidates, to look at a different side of things from my first one [1] and somewhat related to the one Doug has asked [2].
As Doug mentions, a continuing role of the TC is to evaluate applicants to be official projects. These questions are about that.
There are 63 teams in the official list of projects. How do you feel about this size? Too big, too small, just right? Why?
I don't think the number of projects is an issue - I think that the key point is "does this project help OpenStack fufil its mission". That should be judged on several criteria: 1. Usefulness for OpenStack Users / Operators / Developers? 2. Is it "OpenStack-y" - does it follow our normal models? 3. Is the team engaged with the rest of the community? 4. Is the project maintained to suitible standard that we think it is something that can be used?
If you had to make a single declaration about growth in the number of projects would you prefer to see (and why, of course):
* Something else.
I have no preference on number of projects - as long as they meet the above list.
How has the relatively recent emergence of the open infrastructure projects that are at the same "level" in the Foundation as OpenStack changed your thoughts on the above questions?
I think we are still too early for us to see what (if any impact) this will have on the OpenStack sub-projects. I do think that Open Infrastructure Projects (OIPs) will end up a lot smaller that OpenStack, and this may encourage teams to split out like Zuul has.
Do you think the number of projects has any impact (positive or negative) on our overall ability to get things done?
Yes - the more projects we have, the harder it is to make large community wide changes, like API References, quota standardisation, or healthchecking. But, this cost has to be wieghed against what a project brings to the project.
Recognizing that there are many types of contributors, not just developers, this question is about developers: Throughout history different members of the community have sometimes identified as an "OpenStack developer", sometimes as a project developer (e.g., "Nova developer"). Should we encourage contributors to think of themselves as primarily OpenStack developers? If so, how do we do that? If not, why not?
We should encourage people to think outside of their traditional "team", but we should also recognise that a lot of our contributors are paid to work on a specific segment. In some of those segments, keeping context for just that project is hard enough, and trying to get people to learn about the layout and structure of another project can be a large ask. We do need more "OpenStack Developers", who help drive larger community efforts, but we do need to understand that not all people can step into that role (for many reasons).
Thanks.
[1] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-discuss/2019-February/002914....
[2] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-discuss/2019-February/002923....