[tc][election] campaign discussion: what we can improve in TC & how?
As we are in the campaigning phase of the TC election, where we start the debate on few topics. This is one of the topics where I would like to start the debate.
First off, I'd like to thank all the candidates for showing interest to be part of or continuing as TC.
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them a free hand? If yes, what we can improve and how?
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few projects/members even do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
-gmann
Hello Ghanshyam,
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them
a free hand? If yes, what we can improve and how?
From my current point of view, OpenStack TC is very liberal.
I base my opinion on some discussions of yours I read on ML and IRC and also the non-observability of TC influences in Kolla. :-) I think the current level of control is just right for many projects. But maybe not all. I guess this is a good question to ask all OpenStackers rather than just us.
That said, I believe it is wise to consider this broad topic in the context of the recent Ironic thread on this ML. The not-so-well-defined goal of TC for the upcoming times would be to redefine OpenStack as something more (or maybe even "else") than open source platform for doing IaaS. OpenStack is, as the name gladly suggests, a stack, a pile of open source software projects, mostly in Python, sharing common quality standards (or at least trying to!) under TC guidance. It should be considered laudable to be part of OpenStack rather than seek a way to escape it. If it is not, then we might as well disband this and go home (btw, #stayhome).
As for simpler matters, TC might assume and advertise its role as coordinator of cross-project efforts. And I don't mean current community goals. I am thinking: if someone sees that by using project X and project Y one could potentially achieve great thing Z, TC should be offering its guidance on how to best approach this, in coordination with cores from the relevant projects, and not in a way that enforces TC to always intervene. Note this idea aligns with possible upcoming TC-UC merger.
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few
projects/members even do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
I think this is partly because OpenStack core projects are considered very mature. Continuing on the thought of control, quality and prestige associated with OpenStack, a good short-term goal would be to revisit the OpenStack projects and possibly restructure/deprecate some that need this - considering both integral usability as well as standalone.
I don't think TC transparency needs 'fixing'. This is actually good thing (TM) - as long as projects deliver quality we expect, that is.
-yoctozepto
---- On Sun, 05 Apr 2020 15:07:21 -0500 Radosław Piliszek radoslaw.piliszek@gmail.com wrote ----
Hello Ghanshyam,
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them
a free hand? If yes, what we can improve and how?
From my current point of view, OpenStack TC is very liberal. I base my opinion on some discussions of yours I read on ML and IRC and also the non-observability of TC influences in Kolla. :-) I think the current level of control is just right for many projects. But maybe not all. I guess this is a good question to ask all OpenStackers rather than just us.
That said, I believe it is wise to consider this broad topic in the context of the recent Ironic thread on this ML. The not-so-well-defined goal of TC for the upcoming times would be to redefine OpenStack as something more (or maybe even "else") than open source platform for doing IaaS. OpenStack is, as the name gladly suggests, a stack, a pile of open source software projects, mostly in Python, sharing common quality standards (or at least trying to!) under TC guidance. It should be considered laudable to be part of OpenStack rather than seek a way to escape it. If it is not, then we might as well disband this and go home (btw, #stayhome).
As for simpler matters, TC might assume and advertise its role as coordinator of cross-project efforts. And I don't mean current community goals. I am thinking: if someone sees that by using project X and project Y one could potentially achieve great thing Z, TC should be offering its guidance on how to best approach this, in coordination with cores from the relevant projects, and not in a way that enforces TC to always intervene. Note this idea aligns with possible upcoming TC-UC merger.
True. This is good point and mering TC-UC is one of the good steps on this. Evaluation of use case with all possible solution (as there might be more than one way to solve the things in openstack) is something really need to make openstack easy to understand and use.
Do you think SIG can play big role here working more closely with TC?
-gmann
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few
projects/members even do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
I think this is partly because OpenStack core projects are considered very mature. Continuing on the thought of control, quality and prestige associated with OpenStack, a good short-term goal would be to revisit the OpenStack projects and possibly restructure/deprecate some that need this - considering both integral usability as well as standalone.
I don't think TC transparency needs 'fixing'. This is actually good thing (TM) - as long as projects deliver quality we expect, that is.
-yoctozepto
On Sat, Apr 4, 2020 at 8:56 PM Ghanshyam Mann gmann@ghanshyammann.com wrote:
As we are in the campaigning phase of the TC election, where we start the debate on few topics. This is one of the topics where I would like to start the debate.
First off, I'd like to thank all the candidates for showing interest to be part of or continuing as TC.
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
Meetings. Seriously, I have no idea how I still can't convince people to meet more than one a month. We're a key part of the OpenStack success and we should be meeting just as often as we can to be able to continue to drive things
A month is too long of a cycle to drive things out.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them a free hand? If yes, what
we can improve and how?
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few projects/members even
do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
-gmann
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
Meetings. Seriously, I have no idea how I still can't convince people to meet more than one a month. We're a key part of the OpenStack success and we should be meeting just as often as we can to be able to continue to drive things
A month is too long of a cycle to drive things out.
OK, sub-question for the TC then.
Why do you feel the only place you can drive things is inside of a time restricted, geo-restrictive meeting time?
On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 10:59 AM Sean McGinnis sean.mcginnis@gmx.com wrote:
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
Meetings. Seriously, I have no idea how I still can't convince people to meet more than one a month. We're a key part of the OpenStack success and we should be meeting just as often as we can to be able to continue to drive things
A month is too long of a cycle to drive things out.
OK, sub-question for the TC then.
Why do you feel the only place you can drive things is inside of a time restricted, geo-restrictive meeting time?
I think it's mostly a follow-up thing and a place to drive discussion. The office hours have largely just become a quiet area where not much happens these days. The "meetings" we have are simply to check the box that is given to us from the foundation to quickly glance over the things we're dealing with.
We haven't been very successful in driving mailing list only things, an example is that discussion spirals out for long threads and it becomes quite exhausting to keep up with it all.
It would be so much easier if we can meet together, drive some of the efforts that are happening and reconvene often to keep track of our progress, IMHO.
On Mon, 2020-04-06 at 11:11 -0400, Mohammed Naser wrote:
On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 10:59 AM Sean McGinnis sean.mcginnis@gmx.com wrote:
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
Meetings. Seriously, I have no idea how I still can't convince people to meet more than one a month. We're a key part of the OpenStack success and we should be meeting just as often as we can to be able to continue to drive things
A month is too long of a cycle to drive things out.
OK, sub-question for the TC then.
Why do you feel the only place you can drive things is inside of a time restricted, geo-restrictive meeting time?
I think it's mostly a follow-up thing and a place to drive discussion. The office hours have largely just become a quiet area where not much happens these days. The "meetings" we have are simply to check the box that is given to us from the foundation to quickly glance over the things we're dealing with.
We haven't been very successful in driving mailing list only things, an example is that discussion spirals out for long threads and it becomes quite exhausting to keep up with it all.
yep i find it quite hard to fully keep track of long mailing list discussion for this reason its very easy for thread to split and comments to be missed. (this one porbaly will be) which is why i always prefer to do disucssion via gerrit, irc meetings or in person at meetups or ptg style event with mailing list used to sumerise options and gather input but not for the main discussion ideas are bing brain stormed or inially disscused.
i know that i partly down to the workflow i am use to and partly down to my own abiliy follow mailing list but i think mailing list only activties are very easy to miss and hard to engage with in many cases although not all.
It would be so much easier if we can meet together, drive some of the efforts that are happening and reconvene often to keep track of our progress, IMHO.
---- On Mon, 06 Apr 2020 10:11:32 -0500 Mohammed Naser mnaser@vexxhost.com wrote ----
On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 10:59 AM Sean McGinnis sean.mcginnis@gmx.com wrote:
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
Meetings. Seriously, I have no idea how I still can't convince people to meet more than one a month. We're a key part of the OpenStack success and we should be meeting just as often as we can to be able to continue to drive things
A month is too long of a cycle to drive things out.
OK, sub-question for the TC then.
Why do you feel the only place you can drive things is inside of a time restricted, geo-restrictive meeting time?
I think it's mostly a follow-up thing and a place to drive discussion. The office hours have largely just become a quiet area where not much happens these days. The "meetings" we have are simply to check the box that is given to us from the foundation to quickly glance over the things we're dealing with.
We haven't been very successful in driving mailing list only things, an example is that discussion spirals out for long threads and it becomes quite exhausting to keep up with it all.
It would be so much easier if we can meet together, drive some of the efforts that are happening and reconvene often to keep track of our progress, IMHO.
Initially, I was not in favour of more meetings compare to office hours idea but considering your very valid point that office hours are almost quiet, I think its time to try the more frequent meeting and speed up or increase the TC activities.
As per Human nature, more the time we spend together more the progress and improvements we do :).
-gmann
-- Mohammed Naser — vexxhost
D. 514-316-8872 D. 800-910-1726 ext. 200 E. mnaser@vexxhost.com W. https://vexxhost.com
On 05/04/2020 01:52, Ghanshyam Mann wrote:
As we are in the campaigning phase of the TC election, where we start the debate on few topics. This is one of the topics where I would like to start the debate.
First off, I'd like to thank all the candidates for showing interest to be part of or continuing as TC.
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or technical help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add your improvement points.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them a free hand? If yes, what
we can improve and how?
Controversial, but I think we did give too much freedom, but the cat is out of the bag now, and it is never going back in.
If we look at the discussions recently about what projects don't like they are things that unfortunately impact on users, and give the impression that OpenStack is more disjointed than it really is.
Would I love to have a unified CLI that didn't need a decoder ring?[1] 100% Yes.
Do I understand why projects push back on using it?
Yes (and I once pushed back against the project I was working on using it for other reasons.)
Where we are now, we don't have the developers to massive restructure all of OpenStack inside a 6 month release, so we need to find balances and I think this is where the TC can add value, and help push the community and project forward.
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few projects/members even
do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
Yes, but I think that is a sign of the times. We have less rapid evolution in the projects that causes the TC to help out, which drops interaction.
Worryingly, I think we are also seeing projects slowing down interaction with the community as a whole - we are in a weird situation globally, so that could have caused it, but if we look at the amount of projects that missed the deadline for PTL nominations, it shows a worrying trend.
-gmann
On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:57 AM Ghanshyam Mann gmann@ghanshyammann.com wrote:
What you think we should and must improve in TC ? This can be the involvement of TC in the process from the governance point of view or
technical
help for each project. Few of the question is below but feel free to add
your improvement
points.
Our current monthly meeting is fine, but our action define process after long discussion and action tracing surely have room to improve. On the other hand, TC voting is something to work on as (IMO) we need some more definition on how TC should run our voting process and how we can honor that decision as a group. There is a general voting process guide but we do facing some difficulty when running non-Gerrit voting.
- Do we have too much restriction on project sides and not giving them a
free hand? If yes, what
we can improve and how?
Nope IMO.:) The current restrictions do bring us some benefit. We should always re-discuss about this. But for now, I think it's reasonable.
- Is there less interaction from TC with projects? I am sure few
projects/members even
do not know even what TC is for? What's your idea to solve this.
It's not a bad thing when projects don't need TC to interact. But it's a bad thing when we can't find many people to involve with community goal processes. Have Liaison to play the role between project and TC is one possible way. But regarding the goal process matters, maybe with the current proposed goal schedule things can run like release schedule.
As an action idea, to make sure project PTLs and SIG chairs are aware of TC is some action we should take on, as new PTLs just elected. IMO, a lot of people should be invited to the TC meeting. And we should literally send emails, or ask PTLs and SIG chairs if they can join.
-- Be safe! Rico Lin irc: ricolin
participants (7)
-
Ghanshyam Mann
-
Graham Hayes
-
Mohammed Naser
-
Radosław Piliszek
-
Rico Lin
-
Sean McGinnis
-
Sean Mooney