Open Stack

On 03/10/2015 12:29 PM, Russell Bryant wrote:
> The TC is in the middle of implementing a fairly significant change in
> project governance.  You can find an overview from Thierry on the
> OpenStack blog [1].
>
> Part of the change is to recognize more projects as being part of the
> OpenStack community.  Another critical part was replacing the integrated
> release with a set of tags.  A project would be given a tag if it meets
> some defined set of criteria.

The two things are not mutually exclusive.

Also, the tags are intended to be informative, not "granted by the TC". 
As Thierry mentioned elsewhere, the job of defining these tags and 
applying them to projects is a never-ending thing, not something that 
needs to be completed before allowing new projects into the openstack/ 
code namespace.

> I feel that we're at a very vulnerable part of this transition.  We've
> abolished the incubation process and integrated release.  We've
> established a fairly low bar for new projects [2].  However, we have not
> yet approved *any* tags other than the one that reflects which projects
> are included in the final integrated release (Kilo) [3].  Despite the
> previously discussed challenges with the integrated release,
> it did at least mean that a project has met a very useful set of
> criteria [4].

a) I believe the integrated release moniker held much value previously

b) The existing OpenStack projects that were in the "integrated release" 
are *already* tagged with the integrated-release tag, and no new 
projects will be tagged with that.

c) There is no connection at all between the "bar" for projects to get 
into the openstack/ code namespace and the tags. The tags are 
informative and can be applied at any time to a project. They are not a 
"blessing" by the TC.

> We now have several new project proposals.  However, I propose not
> approving any new projects until we have a tagging system that is at
> least far enough along to represent the set of criteria that we used to
> apply to all OpenStack projects (with exception for ones we want to
> consciously drop).

Again, tags aren't criteria that we use to determine whether a project 
is worthy of being in the openstack/ code namespace. The entire point of 
the Big Tent model was to move away from the TC blessing projects and 
instead use tags to decorate a project with some useful information. In 
other words, the point of Big Tent was to decouple these tags from the 
application process.

> Otherwise, I think it's a significant setback to our
> project governance as we have yet to provide any useful way to navigate
> the growing set of projects.
>
> The resulting set of tags doesn't have to be focused on replicating our
> previous set of criteria.  The focus must be on what information is
> needed by various groups of consumers and tags are a mechanism to
> implement that.  In any case, we're far from that point because today we
> have nothing.
>
> I can't think of any good reason to rush into approving projects in the
> short term.  If we're not able to work out this rich tagging system in a
> reasonable amount of time, then maybe the whole approach is broken and
> we need to rethink the whole approach.

In contrast, I see no reason to prevent new projects from applying. 
There's nothing about the new application requirements that mentions 
tags or the need to tag a project at application time.

Best,
-jay

> Thanks,
>
> [1] http://www.openstack.org/blog/2015/02/tc-update-project-reform-progress/
> [2] http://governance.openstack.org/reference/new-projects-requirements.html
> [3] http://governance.openstack.org/reference/tags/index.html
> [4]
> http://governance.openstack.org/reference/incubation-integration-requirements.html
>