Open Stack

> Anne Gentle <mailto:annegentle at justwriteclick.com>
> June 29, 2017 at 9:17 AM
> On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 8:49 AM, Jimmy McArthur<jimmy at openstack.org>  wrote:
>> Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>> The confusion I'm talking about is not the passive-aggressive from
>>> people involved in openstack. It's from our prospective new users, who
>>> have no idea about our governance, making random searches on Google.
>>> It's from people getting hit by marketing message from projects claiming
>>> to be official OpenStack projects, while they are not. It's extremely
>>> difficult for those to see clearly, especially with all our online
>>> presence reinforcing the confusion.
>> If there is specifically confusion around Google searches, I'd suggest as a
>> first step to spend some time working on redirects for dead projects and
>> very clearly updating documentation. For all of Google's magic, there are
>> some simple and easy rules to help correct bad search data.
>
> This.
>
> Even though I've worked on the docs for years, I don't think we are
> improving on this front.
>
> Jimmy, do you know how to put more recent docs (instead of most
> established docs) at the top of the search hits? The nature of the
> algorithm rewards longevity over recency, and I've never quite learned
> how to take care of that.
Longevity is one thing, as is relevance. If there are projects that are 
no longer maintained but still have "relevant" data under the o.o 
domain, they will come up in a Google search.  The trick is to make sure 
you're removing that data, not just putting a message at the top to the 
end user to say it's no longer an OpenStack project. In this specific 
example, I would create a new page like wiki.o.o/machine-learning with 
valid links to OpenStack docs on machine learning and do a 301 permanent 
redirect from pages that are no longer relevant (e.g. 
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meteos).
>
> Are there other specific ideas you have?
The best way to tailor Google results is to ensure the sitemap is up to 
date (https://docs.openstack.org/sitemap.xml) and you are setting the 
proper  301, 302, and 404 responses.  If there is old data, it needs to 
be dealt with properly, which is a massive PITA, but completely worth 
it.  Search engines WILL follow the rules if you direct them properly.
>
>> Additionally, we just implemented SwifType on OpenStack.org and docs.o.o b/c
>> Google deprecated their Site Search product. We have a ton of control over
>> that search and can very easily modify search results.
>
> Pretty sure we want to tackle the "Google is my front page to the
> Internet" problem first, but this search change is also excellent and
> helpful.
100% correct :)  Just wanted to mention it. Honestly, if you fix the 
Google problem, then you'll automatically fix the new SwifType search as 
well.
>
> Anne
>
>> Let me know if I can be of service on any of these fronts.
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________________
>> OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
>> Unsubscribe: OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe
>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
>
>
>
> Jimmy McArthur <mailto:jimmy at openstack.org>
> June 29, 2017 at 8:49 AM
>
>
>
> If there is specifically confusion around Google searches, I'd suggest 
> as a first step to spend some time working on redirects for dead 
> projects and very clearly updating documentation. For all of Google's 
> magic, there are some simple and easy rules to help correct bad search 
> data.
>
> Additionally, we just implemented SwifType on OpenStack.org and 
> docs.o.o b/c Google deprecated their Site Search product. We have a 
> ton of control over that search and can very easily modify search 
> results.
>
> Let me know if I can be of service on any of these fronts.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________________ 
>
> OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Unsubscribe: 
> OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> Thierry Carrez <mailto:thierry at openstack.org>
> June 29, 2017 at 3:00 AM
> Monty Taylor wrote:
>> On 06/28/2017 09:50 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>> [...] Removing the root cause would be a more radical move: stop offering
>>> hosting to non-OpenStack projects on OpenStack infrastructure
>>> altogether. We originally did that for a reason, though. The benefits of
>>> offering that service are:
>> I disagree that this is removing the root cause.
>>
>> I believe this is reacting to a misunderstanding by hiding from it. I do
>> not believe that doing this provides any value to us as a community.
>>
>> Even though we do not actually use github for development, we have
>> implicitly accepted the false premise that github is a requirement. It
>> is suggested that the existence of git repos in the openstack/ github
>> org is confusing to people. And our reaction to that is to cut off
>> access to our Open Source tools that we set up to collaboratively
>> develop cloud software and tell people to go use the thing that people
>> suggest is one of the causes of people being confused?
>
> I don't think I agree. GitHub is just one area where confusion spreads.
> Going back to my example, searching for "openstack machine learning" on
> Google will give you links to GitHub, but also the OpenStack wiki, and
> our cgit farm. All of them corroborate that the two projects returned
> are, by all means, official (while they aren't).
>
> So the suggestion (to cut off access to openstack project infrastructure
> for things that are not openstack and will never be) is not in reaction
> to GitHub, it's in reaction to the confusion that having them on the
> very same project infrastructure creates (on all of our online
> presence), *and* how hard it is to address that confusion at the edge.
>
>> * People are not 'confused' by what OpenStack is.
>>
>> Being "confused" is a passive-aggressive way of expressing that they
>> DISAGREE with what OpenStack is. We still have _plenty_ of people who
>> express that they think we should only be IaaS - so they're still going
>> to be unhappy with cloudkitty, congress and karbor.
>>
>> Such people are under the misguided impression that kicking cloudkitty
>> out of OpenStack will somehow cause Nova features to land quicker. I
>> can't even begin to express all of the ways in which it's wrong. We
>> aren't a top-down corporate structure and we can't 'reassign' humans -
>> but even if we WERE - this flawed thinking runs afoul of the Mythical
>> Man Month.
>
> Sure, but you are missing my point. I totally agree that a lot of people
> involved in OpenStack pretend to be confused, despite us being very
> clear as to what's officially in OpenStack and what's not, and that's
> their own way of complaining about how things turned out.
>
> The confusion I'm talking about is not the passive-aggressive from
> people involved in openstack. It's from our prospective new users, who
> have no idea about our governance, making random searches on Google.
> It's from people getting hit by marketing message from projects claiming
> to be official OpenStack projects, while they are not. It's extremely
> difficult for those to see clearly, especially with all our online
> presence reinforcing the confusion.
>
>> * Kicking non-official things out will not help
>>
>> If I'm wrong about the above and it really is all just about not being
>> able to navigate a set of repositories that are prefixed with the string
>> 'openstack/', it STILL WON'T HELP.
>>
>> There are 1049 official repos. There are only 1676 repos in gerrit.
>>
>> Do we honestly think that people who are confused are going to be less
>> confused by the number of repos in the sacred 'openstack/' namespace
>> going from 1676 to 1049? Do we next tell projects they can only have
>> their primary service managed? Kick out chef, puppet, juju and ansible,
>> as well as the deb- repos? Because maybe the existence of
>> openstack/deb-python-oslo.privsep is confusing someone?
>
> Again, I agree, but I think you're missing my point. Kicking
> non-official things is not about cutting the number of repositories, or
> somehow making the git.openstack.org/cgit front page more navigable. We
> are indeed past that.
>
> Kicking non-official things is about stopping blurring the line between
> what's "in" openstack and what's "out". It's about someone googling for
> machine learning on openstack, finding Cognitive on git.openstack.org
> and wiki.openstack.org, assuming it's an official openstack project
> based on those domain names, trying to check it out, realizing it's only
> 4 commits and dead for two years, and assuming OpenStack has pretty low
> standards and is a bunch of dead crap. How do you propose we address
> *that* ?
>
>> [...]
>>> Thoughts on that ? Would you rather address the confusion at the edges,
>>> or remove the root cause ?
>> The only reasonable action is actually addressing the confusion.
>>
>> the confusion isn't just at the edges - the confusion is actually THE
>> ONLY PROBLEM. There is no other problem that needs to be solved _other_
>> than confusion in this area. The number of projects in gerrit is not a
>> technical problem. It's not overwhelming our governance. It's not a
>> problem for anyone who isn't confused (or saying they're confused when
>> they just disagree)
>>
>> If we create problems for any our developers because there are people
>> who are confused rather than addressing the confusion, we will have
>> abdicated our responsibilities wholesale.
>
> That would be the first option. We continue to communicate about how
> things really are, and find technical ways to drop markers on unofficial
> projects so that people don't assume too much from the project hosting.
> It's just a lot of maintenance work, and it's not been very successful
> so far. With less and less resources on the infra team to implement
> technical workarounds, I'm just not convinced that's a sustainable solution.
>
> Monty Taylor <mailto:mordred at inaugust.com>
> June 28, 2017 at 4:50 PM
> On 06/28/2017 09:50 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Two weeks ago, as a result of a discussion at the Board+TC+UC workgroup
>> working on "better communicating what is openstack", I started a
>> thread[1] about moving away from big tent terminology. The thread went
>> in a lot of directions, including discussing GitHub mirroring strategy,
>> what makes projects want to be official, the need for returning to a
>> past when everything was (supposedly) simpler, and naming fun.
>>
>> [1] 
>> http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-June/118368.html
>>
>> Many agreed that the "Big Tent" name (as a synonym to "official
>> openstack projects") is hurting more than it helps, and we should stop
>> using it. The issue is, merely stopping using it won't be enough. We
>> have tried, and the name sticks. You need to replace the name by
>> something that sticks more, or address the root cause directly.
>>
>> The central issue being discussed here is an issue of external
>> perception. It's hard for newcomers to the OpenStack world to see what
>> is a part of OpenStack and what's not. If you google "openstack machine
>> learning", the first hits are Cognitive and Meteos, and it's impossible
>> to tell that those are actually not OpenStack projects. One of those has
>> been dead for 2 years -- having people think that those are official
>> projects hurts all the OpenStack projects, by lowering expectations
>> around what that means, in terms of quality, maintenance, or community.
>>
>> The confusion mainly stems from the fact that OpenStack project
>> infrastructure is open to any open source project (and it's nobody's job
>> to clean up dead things). So you can find (on our wiki, on our
>> mailing-list, on our cgit farm, on our gerrit, on our GitHub
>> organization...) things that are actually not OpenStack, even with the
>> expansive "are you one of us" definition. Arguably the most confusing
>> aspect is the "openstack/" prefix in the git repository name, which
>> indicates some kind of brand association.
>>
>> I'd say we have two options. We can address the perception issue on the
>> edges, or you can treat the root cause. Neither of those options is
>> really an OpenStack  governance change (or "big tent" change) -- they
>> are more about what to do with things that are actually *not* in our
>> governance.
>>
>> Addressing the perception on the edges means making it clearer when
>> things are not official. The thread above discussed a lot of potential
>> solutions. We could give unofficial things a catchy group name
>> (Stackforge, Opium, Electrons...), and hope it sticks. We could find a
>> way to tag all projects on GitHub that are not official, or mirror them
>> to another organization, or stop mirroring them altogether. We could
>> remove the openstack/ prefix from all the projects we host. We could
>> actively mark all wiki pages that are not about an official project. We
>> could set up a separate Gerrit or separate ML for hosted projects
>> development discussions. The main issue with that approach is that it's
>> a *lot* of work, and it never completely eliminates the confusion.
>>
>> Removing the root cause would be a more radical move: stop offering
>> hosting to non-OpenStack projects on OpenStack infrastructure
>> altogether. We originally did that for a reason, though. The benefits of
>> offering that service are:
>
> I disagree that this is removing the root cause.
>
> I believe this is reacting to a misunderstanding by hiding from it. I 
> do not believe that doing this provides any value to us as a community.
>
> Even though we do not actually use github for development, we have 
> implicitly accepted the false premise that github is a requirement. It 
> is suggested that the existence of git repos in the openstack/ github 
> org is confusing to people. And our reaction to that is to cut off 
> access to our Open Source tools that we set up to collaboratively 
> develop cloud software and tell people to go use the thing that people 
> suggest is one of the causes of people being confused?
>
> * People are not 'confused' by what OpenStack is.
>
> Being "confused" is a passive-aggressive way of expressing that they 
> DISAGREE with what OpenStack is. We still have _plenty_ of people who 
> express that they think we should only be IaaS - so they're still 
> going to be unhappy with cloudkitty, congress and karbor.
>
> Such people are under the misguided impression that kicking cloudkitty 
> out of OpenStack will somehow cause Nova features to land quicker. I 
> can't even begin to express all of the ways in which it's wrong. We 
> aren't a top-down corporate structure and we can't 'reassign' humans - 
> but even if we WERE - this flawed thinking runs afoul of the Mythical 
> Man Month.
>
> * Kicking non-official things out will not help
>
> If I'm wrong about the above and it really is all just about not being 
> able to navigate a set of repositories that are prefixed with the 
> string 'openstack/', it STILL WON'T HELP.
>
> There are 1049 official repos. There are only 1676 repos in gerrit.
>
> Do we honestly think that people who are confused are going to be less 
> confused by the number of repos in the sacred 'openstack/' namespace 
> going from 1676 to 1049? Do we next tell projects they can only have 
> their primary service managed? Kick out chef, puppet, juju and 
> ansible, as well as the deb- repos? Because maybe the existence of
> openstack/deb-python-oslo.privsep is confusing someone?
>
> Guess what? We're big. Software is hard. Life doesn't fit into neat 
> packages people want it to fit in to.
>
>
>> 1- it lets us set up code repositories and testing infrastructure before
>> a project applies to be an official OpenStack project.
>>
>> 2- it lets us host things that are not openstack but which we work on
>> (like abandoned Python libraries or GPL-licensed things) in a familiar
>> environment
>>
>> 3- it spreads "the openstack way" (Gerrit, Zuul) beyond openstack itself
>>
>> I would argue that we could handle (1) and (2) within our current
>> governance.
>>
>> For (1) we could have an "onboarding" project team that would help
>> incoming projects through the initial steps of becoming an openstack
>> project. The team would act as an umbrella team, an experimental area
>> for projects that have some potential to become an OpenStack project one
>> day. There would be a time limit -- if after one year(?) it looks like
>> you won't become an openstack project after all, the onboarding team
>> would clean you up. I actually think a bit more project mentoring would
>> serve us better than our current hands-free approach.
>>
>> For (2) we could also have some other official project team as an
>> umbrella for those deps we depend on and have to continue maintaining.
>> Or we could expand Oslo's team scope to cover it. It's just a couple of
>> repositories anyway.
>>
>> That leaves (3). I would argue that was a nice thing to have, but its
>> impact was very limited (not so many successful/alive projects in that
>> category). I guess if the need is still there and people really want to
>> work on this, it could be (and actually has been) set up as a parallel
>> infrastructure. The confusion that stems from running it on top of the
>> very same infrastructure is just too costly for us at this point.
>>
>> This radical solution still means work, but it's one-time governance
>> work, rather than infra changes / continuous curation work. It *is*
>> radical though, especially for the affected git repositories (for which
>> we often don't have any contact email). It will also make removing
>> projects a lot more difficult (as there will be consequences in terms of
>> project hosting).
>
> The work to do this provides absolutely no benefit.
>
>> Thoughts on that ? Would you rather address the confusion at the edges,
>> or remove the root cause ?
>
> The only reasonable action is actually addressing the confusion.
>
> the confusion isn't just at the edges - the confusion is actually THE 
> ONLY PROBLEM. There is no other problem that needs to be solved 
> _other_ than confusion in this area. The number of projects in gerrit 
> is not a technical problem. It's not overwhelming our governance. It's 
> not a problem for anyone who isn't confused (or saying they're 
> confused when they just disagree)
>
> If we create problems for any our developers because there are people 
> who are confused rather than addressing the confusion, we will have 
> abdicated our responsibilities wholesale.
>
> Monty
>
> __________________________________________________________________________ 
>
> OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Unsubscribe: 
> OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> Thierry Carrez <mailto:thierry at openstack.org>
> June 28, 2017 at 9:50 AM
> Hi everyone,
>
> Two weeks ago, as a result of a discussion at the Board+TC+UC workgroup
> working on "better communicating what is openstack", I started a
> thread[1] about moving away from big tent terminology. The thread went
> in a lot of directions, including discussing GitHub mirroring strategy,
> what makes projects want to be official, the need for returning to a
> past when everything was (supposedly) simpler, and naming fun.
>
> [1] 
> http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-June/118368.html
>
> Many agreed that the "Big Tent" name (as a synonym to "official
> openstack projects") is hurting more than it helps, and we should stop
> using it. The issue is, merely stopping using it won't be enough. We
> have tried, and the name sticks. You need to replace the name by
> something that sticks more, or address the root cause directly.
>
> The central issue being discussed here is an issue of external
> perception. It's hard for newcomers to the OpenStack world to see what
> is a part of OpenStack and what's not. If you google "openstack machine
> learning", the first hits are Cognitive and Meteos, and it's impossible
> to tell that those are actually not OpenStack projects. One of those has
> been dead for 2 years -- having people think that those are official
> projects hurts all the OpenStack projects, by lowering expectations
> around what that means, in terms of quality, maintenance, or community.
>
> The confusion mainly stems from the fact that OpenStack project
> infrastructure is open to any open source project (and it's nobody's job
> to clean up dead things). So you can find (on our wiki, on our
> mailing-list, on our cgit farm, on our gerrit, on our GitHub
> organization...) things that are actually not OpenStack, even with the
> expansive "are you one of us" definition. Arguably the most confusing
> aspect is the "openstack/" prefix in the git repository name, which
> indicates some kind of brand association.
>
> I'd say we have two options. We can address the perception issue on the
> edges, or you can treat the root cause. Neither of those options is
> really an OpenStack governance change (or "big tent" change) -- they
> are more about what to do with things that are actually *not* in our
> governance.
>
> Addressing the perception on the edges means making it clearer when
> things are not official. The thread above discussed a lot of potential
> solutions. We could give unofficial things a catchy group name
> (Stackforge, Opium, Electrons...), and hope it sticks. We could find a
> way to tag all projects on GitHub that are not official, or mirror them
> to another organization, or stop mirroring them altogether. We could
> remove the openstack/ prefix from all the projects we host. We could
> actively mark all wiki pages that are not about an official project. We
> could set up a separate Gerrit or separate ML for hosted projects
> development discussions. The main issue with that approach is that it's
> a *lot* of work, and it never completely eliminates the confusion.
>
> Removing the root cause would be a more radical move: stop offering
> hosting to non-OpenStack projects on OpenStack infrastructure
> altogether. We originally did that for a reason, though. The benefits of
> offering that service are:
>
> 1- it lets us set up code repositories and testing infrastructure before
> a project applies to be an official OpenStack project.
>
> 2- it lets us host things that are not openstack but which we work on
> (like abandoned Python libraries or GPL-licensed things) in a familiar
> environment
>
> 3- it spreads "the openstack way" (Gerrit, Zuul) beyond openstack itself
>
> I would argue that we could handle (1) and (2) within our current
> governance.
>
> For (1) we could have an "onboarding" project team that would help
> incoming projects through the initial steps of becoming an openstack
> project. The team would act as an umbrella team, an experimental area
> for projects that have some potential to become an OpenStack project one
> day. There would be a time limit -- if after one year(?) it looks like
> you won't become an openstack project after all, the onboarding team
> would clean you up. I actually think a bit more project mentoring would
> serve us better than our current hands-free approach.
>
> For (2) we could also have some other official project team as an
> umbrella for those deps we depend on and have to continue maintaining.
> Or we could expand Oslo's team scope to cover it. It's just a couple of
> repositories anyway.
>
> That leaves (3). I would argue that was a nice thing to have, but its
> impact was very limited (not so many successful/alive projects in that
> category). I guess if the need is still there and people really want to
> work on this, it could be (and actually has been) set up as a parallel
> infrastructure. The confusion that stems from running it on top of the
> very same infrastructure is just too costly for us at this point.
>
> This radical solution still means work, but it's one-time governance
> work, rather than infra changes / continuous curation work. It *is*
> radical though, especially for the affected git repositories (for which
> we often don't have any contact email). It will also make removing
> projects a lot more difficult (as there will be consequences in terms of
> project hosting).
>
> Thoughts on that ? Would you rather address the confusion at the edges,
> or remove the root cause ?
>

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