[openstack-dev] [Nova] PTL Candidacy

Mark McLoughlin markmc at redhat.com
Fri Mar 8 12:51:07 UTC 2013


On Thu, 2013-03-07 at 20:59 -0500, Russell Bryant wrote:
> Nova is quite busy.  Vish, obviously you know how much work this takes.
>  I think Michael and I have both been around enough to see how much work
> it is, which is why both of us called out project structure and
> delegation as things we would want to work on if elected as the PTL.
> 
> I give a +1 to formalizing an expanded leadership model that addresses
> the growth in the project so that we don't burn out a single leader, but
> -0 to getting rid of a single PTL that is ultimately responsible for the
> project.  I'll keep thinking about it, though. 

(FWIW, I do buy the argument that things are improving organically and
that a more radical change might be overkill ... but figure it's worth
talking through this a bit more)

Nova is indeed quite busy. For me personally, the answer to "well, what
would it take for me to be Nova PTL?" is basically "drop everything else
and just do that".

I'm sure both you and Michael feel the same way when submitting your
candidacies, but you both also hope the team will take more of the
burden from the PTL.

That's all great, but I struggle to see it ending (any time, at least)
in a situation where the PTL doesn't have an order of magnitude work and
responsibility than anyone else on the team.

The idea of "3 or 4 drivers with a rotating figurehead PTL" is that none
of the drivers would feel more responsibility than the others and they'd
be forced to share the work much more evenly. Hopefully with a number
that small, it would never be a case of "one of the others will do it".

That might result in 3 or 4 people feeling they have to drop everything
and focus on the Nova leadership ... but if that's what it takes ...

There's the slightly ugly human nature side of this too - much as no-one
wants the PTL position to be a "prize" for the most committed leader, it
is an elevated status and if the 2 or 3 other Nova leaders feel they are
massively "under-rewarded" compared to the PTL, then I think it's
natural for them to feel less responsibility for the workload ... except
where they want to be in the running for the "prize" in the next
election.

Cheers,
Mark.




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