Open Stack

On Thu, 12 Feb 2015, Flavio Percoco wrote:
> On 11/02/15 11:24 +0000, Chris Dent wrote:
>> I think it is time we recognize and act on the fact that the corporate
>> landlords that pay many of us to farm on this land need to provide more
>> resources. This will help to ensure the health of semi-artifical
>> opensource ecology that is OpenStack. At the moment many things are
>> packed tight with very little room to breathe. We need some air.
>
> I agree with lots of what you said except for this last bit here. I
> don't believe OpenStack is a "semi-artificial opensrouce ecology".
> OpenStack has demostrated throughout the years the ability of growing
> without sacrificing openness.

Sorry that probably comes across sounding much more negative than I
intended. What I was trying to say was that there is an avenue that
is probably worth exploring to help with some of the issues that
overwhelm each of as individuals: Implore the corporate entities that
pay us to provide more resources so that there is more room within the
community for people to work on things with less pressure.

There are significant numbers of us who work on OpenStack because it
is our job. Mind you its a pretty cool job with lots of interesting
people and good stuff to learn, but it is a job; one in which money
is a factor.

That money is being applied by the corporate entities because it is in
their interest for this thing called OpenStack to be created _and_ that
it be created in the collaborative fashion provided by opensource.

A lot of people are finding it hard to be as effective as they'd
like to be. One way (of presumably many) to deal with that is to
make sure the economic beneficiaries are fully aware of the
situation. If they are rational actors they may wish to do something
to improve the situation.

> Saying OpenStack is "semi-artificial opensource" is degrading some of
> the things most of us have been fighting for. I'm not offended, just
> worried. We've many similar messages from outside the community and
> having them coming from within the community is worrisome.

a) I'm relatively new, so am fairly fresh-face and naive and willing
    to make somewhat stupid generalities based on things not being
    like what I'm used to. This has its pros and cons...

b) I've been doing some form of FLOSS software on unix-like machines since
    long before the term opensource was popularized. I'm not
    scratching an itch or working on a problem that is solved by
    making OpenStack better. I made a lot of changes to PAM a long
    time ago because I needed better auth on the servers I managed.
    Today I work on OpenStack because the combination of pay and
    learning opportunities make it a reasonable job. There are lots
    of people like me.

b is what makes it semi-artificial. I'm not stating it as a
pejorative. Corporate opensource is a grand thing and I'm very happy
to see it exist, but it's _different_ from old(er) school itch-
scratching opensource, more...constructed?

All I'm saying is that we should recognize that difference and use
it where it could be useful. In practical terms: let's get the landlords
to open up the purse a bit. I think this is a reasonable request: If
your computer no longer has enough memory to do your job you ask
your manager to get your more RAM. Pretty similar thing going on
here.

What the OpenStack community did and does is truly remarkable and that
it has done it while maintaining its opensource cred is a credit to
people like yourself who have kept up the good fight. It's a very
complex environment.

> That said, I may have mis-understood what you meant so, please correct
> me if I did. Tired and I should've probably waited 'til tomorrow
> before replying. Oh well, :D

I may be in the same boat.

-- 
Chris Dent tw:@anticdent freenode:cdent
https://tank.peermore.com/tanks/cdent