Open Stack

There's two main types of services in openstack. Those that are a multitenant aware implementation of some kind of data plane protocol with an "openstack" api. Swift/radosgw, Zaqar, MagnetoDB, etc. I think we can ignore these in this discussion.

Then there's what I consider the more "Operating System" style OpenStack services. They are like the Linux Kernel Subsystems. They provide a standard API, and provide plugins to actually implement the guts of the requests. Abstracting out the request from how to get it done.

(A few services do both, Neutron for example is a pure pluggable api, but also provides a reference implementation driver that does an sdn.)

So, the question I think is really for those "Operating System" style services, is it alright to have a standard, opensource api with no current backing system that's free?

While not a pure direct comparison,lets look to the leading opensource operating system for guidance. So, are there any examples of a OS subsystem that has drivers that there are no purely open solutions to implementing the api. Just off the top of my head, I'd say the Infiniband subsystem. You can't use the api unless you buy hardware from someone and use the appropriate driver and proprietary firmware.

So there is precedent for it in the open source world. While being completely open is a great goal, I think there are rare cases where it makes sense to allow the abstraction and plugable drivers without a current open backend.

Poppy is a very interesting edge case. CDN's are useful to users mostly because they are about having the vast network of machines spread across the world that you can push content to. Its not the software users care about but the whole worldwide system made up of hardware, sysadmins, software, etc. You can almost think of it as a single piece of hardware provided by a vendor in this instance. I'm guessing at present, its unlikely that any reference implementation of an opensource piece of software would ever be that widely deployed. But as an optional API, it would be great if there was a single standard opensource api that was vendor neutral can be provided so that it doesn't just break down to each vendor providing their own proprietary api. The open/standard api is a much better thing for everyone. Most OS's accept this level of tradeoff.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks,
Kevin
________________________________________
From: Ed Leafe [ed at leafe.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:08 PM
To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [all] [tc] "No Open Core" in 2016

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On 02/05/2016 01:16 PM, Sean Dague wrote:

> Whether or not it is, I'm not sure how it is part of a Ubiquitous
> Open Source Cloud Platform. Because it only enables the use of
> commerical services.
>
> It's fine that it's open source software. I just don't think it's
> OpenStack.

Agreed. I don't think that everything that may be useful to consumers
of OpenStack has to be part of OpenStack, either.

- --

- -- Ed Leafe
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