Open Stack

Excerpts from Chris Dent's message of 2016-10-12 15:08:48 +0100:
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2016, Clint Byrum wrote:
> 
> > So, while I do want to make sure enough of our architects and designers
> > go to the summit to truly understand user needs, I also think it has
> > been proven ineffective to also throw all of the coders into that mix and
> > expect them to be productive.
> 
> I suspect you didn't mean it to sound like this, and I don't want to
> distract overmuch from the meat of this thread, but at a superficial
> level it appears you are implying that there is a disjunction
> between coders and architects/designers. I was pretty sure that was
> an antiquated notion and if it is being used to drive the decisions
> about what should happen at summit and what should happen at PTG,
> that's a shame.
> 

Oh dear no. I am speaking of the many hats that many of our community
members wear from time to time. Everybody's welcome and valuable, but
the value people will bring to OpenStack, and take back to their orgs,
will vary by circumstance. The Summit is an attempt to allow those not
in need of direct operator/user interaction to skip and attend a more
productive event in a more productive time slot.

I'd also like to point out that we should get better at taking user
feedback _on the internet_. The Summit is an expensive event for users
and operators to attend as well. We should not rely on it as _the_ place
to get that feedback. We have bug trackers, ask forums, mailing lists,
and IRC, and all of those are places that anybody who has internet access
can contribute feedback on.

> The reason, as I understood it, for having a separate event is not
> because all those users are such a horrible distraction but because
> the sales and marketing efforts are (inherent in themselves and also
> in the way that the corporate patrons want the devs to participate
> in those efforts at the cost of the design summit-ing).
>

Right, but many of the users only come because of the sales and marketing
budgets.

> For most of us, as Dmitry points out, getting to summit even once a
> year is a real challenge. Getting to 4 events, which is what will be
> required to maintain full engagement with both the planning and
> development of a project (not to mention cross project concerns), will
> either be impossible or require a significant change in the financial
> commitment that the patron companies are making. I think we'd all like
> to see that change, but I think we all also know that it's not very likely
> at this time.
> 

The hope is that only a small percentage of people will have need to go
to 4, and those are likely the people who've already been going to most
Summits and their project Mid-Cycles. Now we can have a mid-cycle level of
productivity, while also facilitating cross-project discussion and work.

> That leaves us in a bit of a bind. It feels very much like we are
> narrowing the direct feedback pipeline between operators and users. It
> also feels like we are strengthening distinctions between various
> types of contributors, based mostly on the economic power their
> corporate patrons are willing to wield for them. And finally it
> feels like we are making it harder for more people to be engaged in
> cross project work.
> 

On the contrary, the PTG will give cross-project contributors a perfect
place to actually participate in project work. A few of us kind of
figured out how to do this at summits, and I think it involved a lot of
hustle and fast talk, which are not everybody's forté.

> I'm certain that none of these things are the desired outcomes.
> What can we do to clarify the situation and remedy the issues?
>

I'm also certain that not all of the things are actual outcomes. They're
valuable hypothesis though, and we should evaluate the results against
them.