Open Stack

Jay Pipes wrote:

>[…]
>The TC doesn't comply with anything at all. It's the body that is
>elected to make overarching governance decisions for the OpenStack
>community.

Sure, that's an important distinction. My point is that when governance
decisions are made that seem to contradict each other, it can be difficult
to follow.

>> This is the
>> moment that OpenStack stopped being: ³A single product made of a lot of
>> independent, but cooperating, components.² And became: ³A collection of
>> independent projects that work together for some level of integration
>>and
>> releases.²
>
>You are mistaken, I'm sorry to say.

That's entirely possible. The review we're all debating highlights that
the intentions and realities of OpenStack are not easy to agree upon.

>Firstly, your statement that OpenStack stopped being "a single product"
>at some point is just flat-out wrong. It never *was* a single product,
>regardless of whether some time in 2011 seven individuals on the project
>policy board said that that was the direction they preferred the
>community to go in.

As Thierry pointed out, 'A single product made of a lot of independent,
but cooperating, components' is the closest thing we currently have to a
common philosophy. The review[1] in question is attempting to codify this
into our governance policies. The opinion of the TC seems to be that this
is what were currently are. I disagree with that assessment - it sounds
like you do as well. I take your point about OpenStack never being a
single product to begin with. The distinction I would make is that The Big
Tent was the first time a governance decision was made to undermine that
goal.

>Secondly, the Big Tent was about changing the process by which new
>projects applying to become "OpenStack projects" were evaluated by the
>TC. We went from a situation of evaluating new projects using
>subjective, often contradicting and changing opinions on architectural
>and software design to instead evaluating new project teams on whether
>the project team followed "The OpenStack Way" (followed the 4 Opens and
>furthered the mission of OpenStack)
>
>The Big Tent **was not a redefinition of what OpenStack was or is**.

In theory, perhaps. In practice, I'd say that it was. Prior to The Big
Tent there was a clear distinction between which projects were OpenStack,
and which projects were OpenStack-in-waiting (Stackforge). A problem that
The Big Tent seemed to be solving was that there wasn't always a clear
path for a given Stackforge project to become an OpenStack project. I
don't think the problem was the path, but the goal. The expectation was
that Stackforge projects would eventually graduate into OpenStack
projects, but with the definition/requirements of OpenStack at the time
that didn't always make sense. So we changed what it meant to be an
OpenStack project. Perhaps what we should have done is define a new place
for such projects to land.

>Sounds to me like you are just complaining about OpenStack having too
>many projects in it. If so, please tell us which projects you would have
>leave OpenStack.

Yes, that's a part of what I'm saying. After writing my first reply I
decided there wasn't much point talking about the problem without
proposing a solution, so I wrote one[2]. Essentially it boils down to:

* Abolish The Big Tent
* Define OpenStack as its core components
* Create a new place for complimentary projects to live
* Bring back Stackforge

The link[2] below goes into a lot more detail, and I'd love to hear
feedback from all interested parties.

>My vote is definitely for something #2-like, as I've said before and on
>the review, I believe OpenStack should be a "cloud toolkit" composed of
>well-scoped and limited services in the vein of the UNIX model of do one
>thing and do it well. I believe that vendors and cloud providers should
>be able to choose services and tools from this OpenStack cloud toolkit
>to build clouds, cloud products, and products that utilize OpenStack
>service APIs to please customers.

So it seems we both agree that the current definition doesn't fit, even if
we don’t agree on the solution :)

Thanks,

John

[1] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/357260
[2]
https://johndavidge.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/mr-openstack-tear-down-this-te
nt/


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