Open Stack

On 07/27/2016 10:10 AM, Chris Friesen wrote:
> On 07/27/2016 09:59 AM, Ed Leafe wrote:
>> On Jul 27, 2016, at 10:51 AM, Joshua Harlow <harlowja at fastmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> Whether to have competing projects in the big tent was debated by
>>>> the TC
>>>> at the time and my recollection is that we decided that was a good
>>>> thing
>>>> -- if someone wanted to develop a Nova replacement, then let them do it
>>>> in public with the community. It would either win or lose based on its
>>>> merits. Why is this not something which can happen here as well?
>>>
>>> For real, I (or someone) can start a nova replacement without getting
>>> rejected (or yelled at or ...) by the TC saying it's a competing
>>> project??? Wow, this is news to me...
>>
>> No, you can’t start a Nova replacement and still call yourself OpenStack.
>>
>> The sense I have gotten over the years from the TC is that gratuitous
>> competition is strongly discouraged.
>
> I seem to recall that back during the "big tent" discussion people were
> talking about allowing competing projects that performed the same task,
> and letting natural selection decide which one survived.
>
> For example, at
> "http://www.joinfu.com/2014/09/answering-the-existential-question-in-openstack/"
> Jay Pipes said that being under the big tent should not mean that the
> project is the only/best way to provide a specific function to OpenStack
> users.
>
> On the other hand, the OpenStack new projects requirements *do*
> explicitly state that "Where it makes sense, the project cooperates with
> existing projects rather than gratuitously competing or reinventing the
> wheel."
>
> Maybe it boils down to the definition of "gratuitous" competition.

For the record I think I've always been clear that I don't see 
competition as a bad thing within the OpenStack ecosystem however I have 
always been a proponent of having a *single consistent REST API* for a 
particular service type. I think innovation should happen at the 
implementation layer, but the public HTTP APIs should be collated and 
reviewed for overlap and inconsistencies.

This was why in the past I haven't raised a stink about multiple 
deployment tools, since there was no OpenStack HTTP API for deployment 
of OpenStack itself. But I have absolutely raised concerns over overlap 
of HTTP APIs, like is the case with Monasca and various Telemetry 
project APIs. Again, implementation diversity cool. Public HTTP API 
diversity, not cool.

Best,
-jay