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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thierry Carrez [mailto:thierry at openstack.org]
> Sent: 09 November 2015 16:42
> To: OpenStack Development Mailing List
> Subject: [openstack-dev] [stable] Making stable maintenance its own
> OpenStack project team
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> A few cycles ago we set up the Release Cycle Management team which was a
> bit of a frankenteam of the things I happened to be leading: release
> management, stable branch maintenance and vulnerability management.
> While you could argue that there was some overlap between those functions
> (as in, "all these things need to be released") logic was not the primary
> reason they were put together.
> 
> When the Security Team was created, the VMT was spinned out of the
> Release Cycle Management team and joined there. Now I think we should
> spin out stable branch maintenance as well:
> 
> * A good chunk of the stable team work used to be stable point release
> management, but as of stable/liberty this is now done by the release
> management team and triggered by the project-specific stable maintenance
> teams, so there is no more overlap in tooling used there
> 
> * Following the kilo reform, the stable team is now focused on defining and
> enforcing a common stable branch policy[1], rather than approving every
> patch. Being more visible and having more dedicated members can only help
> in that very specific mission
> 
> * The release team is now headed by Doug Hellmann, who is focused on
> release management and does not have the history I had with stable branch
> policy. So it might be the right moment to refocus release management
> solely on release management and get the stable team its own leadership
> 
> * Empowering that team to make its own decisions, giving it more visibility
> and recognition will hopefully lead to more resources being dedicated to it
> 
> * If the team expands, it could finally own stable branch health and gate
> fixing. If that ends up all falling under the same roof, that team could make
> decisions on support timeframes as well, since it will be the primary resource
> to make that work
> 
> So.. good idea ? bad idea ? What do current stable-maint-core[2] members
> think of that ? Who thinks they could step up to lead that team ?
> 
> [1] http://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/stable-branches.html
> [2] https://review.openstack.org/#/admin/groups/530,members
> 
> --
> Thierry Carrez (ttx)


Hi Thierry,

Thanks for bringing this up. The timing couldn't have been better.

I had lengthy discussion with Flavio Percoco in Tokyo. He asked me what would be the things I'd like to see TC taking on and fix over next cycle. After ranting to him over 20min how I'd like to have actual stable branches in OpenStack, not just tag and branch called stable and find the will and resources to do that, I turned to him and asked "But we really do not need TC for that do we?"

I'm not part of the global stable-maint-core but I have been stable branch liaison for Glance for year now. And I can say that our stable branches are not just tag and branch, they are actually maintained, by really small group of people (which has btw been growing over that whole time). Ihar started discussion to implement something similar to Neutron stable branches, which proves to me that there is will to work on this problem.

Based on the discussion around wishes to extend support of Juno, there is definitely urge to have our stable releases maintained and supported longer. I don't think Juno is reasonable expectation to see that happen, but perhaps we get there.

I think what you are proposing here is the right direction to go, not because it used to be part of "frankenteam" led by you, but because I think the group of people working on our stable branches deserves and needs the recognition for the work. I think that would be the first step to get the people involved. After moving the ownership to individual projects I'd like to see this team, not replacing that but being liberally inclusive cross-project (meta) team to unite the efforts between the projects and making the lives of those people easier and the efforts more justified. I'm in a lucky position as after coming back home I had the discussion with my management and got the commitment to spend significant amount of my time to work on stable across OpenStack projects.

I do realize that there is very small and dedicated group of people fixing the gates and doing all the magic around that issue. If we get more traction and interest of doing backports proactively, hopefully the health of those stable gates would interest more people as well and we could spread that load away from those so few and valuable folks.

Based on this I would like to put my name up for the task.

Will it be me or someone else leading this team if it gets formed, count me in. I will put my effort to make our stable branches better anyways.

Best,
Erno (jokke_) Kuvaja

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