---- On Mon, 06 Apr 2020 10:36:49 -0500 Donny Davis <donny@fortnebula.com> wrote ----
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 11:22 AM Artom Lifshitz <alifshit@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 4, 2020 at 9:12 PM Ghanshyam Mann <gmann@ghanshyammann.com> wrote:
> >
> > This topic is a very important and critical area to solve in the OpenStack community.
> > I personally feel and keep raising this issue wherever I get the opportunity.
> >
> > To develop or maintain any software, the very first thing we need is to have enough developer resources.
> > Without enough developers (either open or closed source), none of the software can survive.
> >
> > OpenStack current situation on contributors is not the same as it was few years back. Almost every
> > project is facing the less contributor issue as compare to requirements and incoming requests. Few
> > projects already dead or going to be if we do not solve the less contributors issue now.
> >
> > I know, TC is not directly responsible to solve this issue but we should do something or at least find
> > the way who can solve this.
>
> I'm not running for TC, but I figured I could chime in with some
> thoughts, and maybe get TC candidates to react.
>
> > What do you think about what role TC can play to solve this? What platform or entity can be used by TC to
> > raise this issue? or any new crazy Idea?
>
> To my knowledge, the vast majority of contributors to OpenStack are
> corporate contributors - meaning, they contribute to the community
> because it's their job. As companies have dropped out, the contributor
> count has diminished. Therefore, the obvious solution to the
> contributor dearth would be to recruit new companies that use or sell
> OpenStack. However, as far as I know, Red Hat is the only company
> remaining that still makes money from selling OpenStack as a product.
> So if we're looking for new contributor companies, we would have to
> look to those that use OpenStack, and try to make the case that it
> makes sense for them to get involved in the community. I'm not sure
> what this kind of advocacy would look like, or towards which
> companies, or what kind of companies, it would be directed. Perhaps
> the TC candidates could have suggestions here. And if I've made any
> wrong assumptions, by all means correct me.
>
> >
> > -gmann
> >
>
>
>
> I don't think you are too far off. I used to work in a place where my job was to help sell Openstack (among other products) andenable the use of it with customers.
> Customers drive everything vendors do. Things that sell are easy to use. Customers don't buy the best products, they buy what theycan understand fastest. If customers are asking for a product, it's because they understand its value. Vendors in turn contributeto projects because they make money from their investment.
> Now think about the perception and reality of Openstack as a whole. We have spent the last decade or so writing bleeding edge features.We have spent very little time on documenting what we do have in layman's terms. The intended audience of our docs would seemto me to be other developers. I hope people don't take that as a jab, it's just the truth. If someone cannot understand how to usethis amazing technology, it won't sell. If it doesn't sell, vendors leave, if vendors leave the number of contributors goes down.
> If we don't start working at making Openstack easier to consume, then no amount of technical change will make an impactful difference.
Ok, this is one of the key things and I am 100% agree on your point - "our docs would seem to me to be other developers".
Does this include 'feature doc & how to use them' or overall usage of OpenStack like "Project X and Y can solve the use case
Z" (what Radosław mentioned in this reply) ?
As you might know, our documentation team is lacking active contributors and moving towards SIG and almost all the documents
are moved/maintain on project side. Do you think that is the issue and can make the current doc more worst (with the typical developer nature)?
Again the same question is here, 'How to get the documents contributors ?' Can operators help here with their use cases, best practice etc ?
If so then how to convince them to participate and contribute in the community?
-gmann
>
> --
> ~/DonnyDC: 805 814 6800"No mission too difficult. No sacrifice too great. Duty First"
Our docs team is completely overloaded. There is no way I see them having the capacity to come up with something. We need a team of
operators who know how operators read, think and talk to put together a consumable document pointed directly at other would be operators /
potential new adopters. We need to target new users who don't know anything about Openstack or in many cases cloud in general.
These Operators don't need to know all the switches and knobs they *can* turn in Openstack when they are in the learning phase.
The ones that do, already know how it all works anyways and the current doc set works great for them.
How do we get contributors to this doc - well I don't really have the answer for that. It's not going to be easy to say the least.
Maybe put out a marketing campaign to find Operators who are willing to contribute.
It's also not just docs - because anyone who has been in IT for more than 12 seconds knows many people don't / won't read docs.
Maybe a simple to understand video series would be super helpful to get people off the ground.
I really don't have all the answers, but I do know for sure that building a cloud is hard - so let's make it easier.
--
~/DonnyD
C: 805 814 6800
"No mission too difficult. No sacrifice too great. Duty First"