Open Stack

Zane Bitter wrote:
> I think the problem is that we still have elements of the 'project'
> terminology around from the bad old days of the pointless
> core/core-but-don't-call-it-core/library/gating/supporting project
> taxonomy, where project == repository. The result is that every time a
> new project gets incubated, the reaction is always "Oh man, you want a
> new *program* too? That sounds really *heavyweight*." If people treated
> the terms 'program' and 'project' as interchangeable and just referred
> to repositories by another name ('repositories', perhaps?) then this
> wouldn't keep coming up.
> 
> (IMHO the quickest way to effect this change in mindset would be to drop
> the term 'program' and call the programs projects. In what meaningful
> sense is e.g. Infra or Docs not a "project"?)

You're right that the confusion now comes from "project" terminology. We
replaced old "projects" by having granular "code repositories" on one
side and grouping them in "programs". The issue is, we still use
"project" (generally to mean code repository now, but in some cases to
mean program). Personally I more and more use "code repo" instead of
"project" to avoid the confusion.

That said I disagree that we should just deprecate the term "program"
and use "project" for designating the grouping instead... I think that
would create more confusion that it solves. History in OpenStack proved
that when we reuse terms ("core" anyone ?) we end up with mess that
can't be easily untangled. I'd rather deprecate the use of the "project"
term now in favor of the new terminology. When I still use "project"
those days it is generally to say "the OpenStack project".

In summary:

- The OpenStack project
- The Compute (Nova) program
- The "openstack/nova" git code repository

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)