Open Stack

Excerpts from Chris Dent's message of 2016-11-09 11:14:32 +0000:
> On Tue, 8 Nov 2016, Ash wrote:
> 
> > I couldn't agree more. I don't like change for the sake of change (in any
> > aspect of my life). So in my mind this would have to be a way to better
> > bind us.
> 
> Here, have some tortured metaphors:
> 
> Something that feels like it gets under-emphasised in this conversation
> is that change is coming whatever we do. As a community we can either
> move quickly and stay ahead of the change and see it as a productive
> development that we can surf or we can dilly dally and get drowned by a
> wave that collapses over us.
> 
> Ecosystems must evolve and change because the world evolves and changes.
> If we try to control this stuff too much what we will be doing is taking
> the oxygen out of the system and snuffing the flame of excitement and
> innovation.
> 
> As a community we don't want to be bound together by rules, we want
> to be enabled by processes that support making and doing things
> effectively. The things that we make and do is what binds us
> together.
> 

What you argue for above, is anarchy. The rules are not what binds us,
our will is. However, the rules are what helps us preserve and grow the
commons that we all share.

It seems like there is enough will to expand the scope of the rules,
but we all must acknowledge that doing so will also require expanding
the commons, and be prepared for the strain that will put on the existing
infrastructure.

And I don't just mean "infra". I mean the infrastructure of python
development knowledge, deployer understanding, and overall communication
overhead.

> The conversations about additional languages in this community have
> been one our most alarmingly regressive and patronizing. They seem
> to be bred out of fear rather than hope and out of lack of faith in
> each other than in trust. We've got people who want to build stuff.
> Isn't that the important part?
> 
> Let's just get on with making stuff and work out the problems (and of
> course there will be many, there always are) as they happen. That's
> what we do.
> 

Apologies for the stretched analogy. What you're suggesting is that we go
build without building codes and without a city plan, because there's a
market force that we must capture. But when we let the tenants move in
(the operators) and the other tenants sewers back up and their roads
are backed up with traffic, we'll just deal with that later. I don't
think that's fair to anyone.

I don't think we have to have a PERFECT plan, but we need to _acknowledge_
that this is the price of diversity and expansion. I personally think
it's worth it, but let's own the chaos and at least start with a rough
hypothesis of how each new language might effect the overall system, and
a plan to measure and react quickly.