Open Stack

Thanks Chris for asking us questions so we can clarify our opinions.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 3:52 PM Chris Dent <cdent+os at anticdent.org> wrote:

>
> It's the Campaigning slot of the TC election process, where members
> of the community (including the candidates) are encouraged to ask
> the candidates questions and witness some debate. I have some
> questions.
>
> First off, I'd like to thank all the candidates for running and
> being willing to commit some of their time. I'd also like to that
> group as a whole for being large enough to force an election. A
> representative body that is not the result of an election would not
> be very representing nor have much of a mandate.
>
>
I agree with you on this point. It's important for OpenStack to have time
to discuss about mandates.

The questions follow. Don't feel obliged to answer all of these. The
> point here is to inspire some conversation that flows to many
> places. I hope other people will ask in the areas I've chosen to
> skip. If you have a lot to say, it might make sense to create a
> different message for each response. Beware, you might be judged on
> your email etiquette and attention to good email technique!
>
> * How do you account for the low number of candidates? Do you
>    consider this a problem? Why or why not?
>
>
Yes, again, I agree and to be honest, when I only saw we were only having 4
candidates 8 hours before the deadline, I said to myself "OK, you love
OpenStack. You think the TC is important. But then, why aren't you then
throwing your hat ?"
We all have opinions, right ? But then, why people don't want to be in the
TC ? Because we don't have a lot of time for it ? Or because people think
the TC isn't important ?

I don't want to discuss about politics here. But I somehow see a parallel
in between what the TC is and what the European Union is : both are
governances not fully decision-makers but are there for sharing same rules
and vision.
If we stop having the TC, what would become OpenStack ? Just a set of
parallel projects with no common guidance ?

The fact that a large number of candidacies went very late (including me)
is a bit concerning to me. How can we become better ? I have no idea but
saying that probably given the time investment it requires, most of the
candidacies were probably holding some management acceptance before people
would propose their names. Probably worth thinking about how the investment
it requires, in particular given we have less full-time contributors that
can dedicate large time for governance.


* Compare and contrast the role of the TC now to 4 years ago. If you
>    weren't around 4 years ago, comment on the changes you've seen
>    over the time you have been around. In either case: What do you
>    think the TC role should be now?
>
>
4 years ago, we were in the Kilo timeframe. That's fun you mention this
period, because at that exact time of the year, the TC voted on one of the
probably most important decisions that impacted OpenStack : The Big Tent
reform [1]
Taking a look at this time, I remember frustration and hard talks but also
people committed to change things.
This decision hasn't changed a lot the existing service projects that were
before the Big Tent, but it actually created a whole new ecosystem for
developers. It had challenges but it never required to be abandoned, which
means the program is a success.

Now the buzz is gone and the number of projects stable, the TC necessarly
has to mutate to a role of making sure all the projects sustain the same
pace and reliability. Most of the challenges for the TC is now about
defining and applying criterias for ensuring that all our projects have a
reasonable state for production. If you see my candidacy letter, two of my
main drivers for my nomination are about upgradability and scalability
concerns.


* What, to you, is the single most important thing the OpenStack
>    community needs to do to ensure that packagers, deployers, and
>    hobbyist users of OpenStack are willing to consistently upstream
>    their fixes and have a positive experience when they do? What is
>    the TC's role in helping make that "important thing" happen?
>
>
There are two very distinct reasons when a company decides to
downstream-only : either by choice or because of technical reasons.
I don't think a lot of companies decide to manage technical debt on their
own by choice. OpenStack is nearly 9 years old and most of the users know
the price it is.

Consequently, I assume that the reasons are technical :
1/ they're running an old version and haven't upgraded (yet). We have good
user stories of large cloud providers that invested in upgrades (for
example OVH) and see the direct benefit of it. Maybe we can educate more on
the benefits of upgrading frequently.
2/ they think upstreaming is difficult. I'm all open to hear the barriers
they have. For what it's worth, OpenStack invested a lot in mentoring with
the FirstContact SIG, documentation and Upstream Institute. There will
probably also be a new program about peer-mentoring and recognition [2] if
the community agrees with the idea. Honestly, I don't know what do do more.
If you really can't upstream but care about your production, just take a
service contract I guess.



> * If you had a magic wand and could inspire and make a single
>    sweeping architectural or software change across the services,
>    what would it be? For now, ignore legacy or upgrade concerns.
>    What role should the TC have in inspiring and driving such
>    changes?
>
>
Take me as a fool but I don't think the role of the TC is to drive
architectural decision between projects.
The TC can help two projects to discuss, the TC can (somehow) help moderate
between two teams about some architectural concern but certainly not be the
driver of such change.

That doesn't mean the TC can't be technical. We have goals, for example.
But in order to have well defined goals that are understandable by project
contributors, we also need to have the projects be the drivers of such
architectural changes.



> * What can the TC do to make sure that the community (in its many
>    dimensions) is informed of and engaged in the discussions and
>    decisions of the TC?
>
>
You made a very good job in providing TC feedback. I surely think the TC
has to make sure that a regular weekly feedback is provided.
For decisions that impact projects, I don't really see how TC members can
vote without getting feedback from the project contributors, so here I see
communication (thru Gerrit at least).




> * How do you counter people who assert the TC is not relevant?
>    (Presumably you think it is, otherwise you would not have run. If
>    you don't, why did you run?)
>

Again, I think that is a matter of considering the TC responsibilities. We
somehow need to clarify what are those responsibilities and I think I
voiced on that above.



> That's probably more than enough. Thanks for your attention.
>
>
I totally appreciate you challenging us. That's very important that people
vote based on opinions rather than popularity.
-Sylvain

[1]
https://governance.openstack.org/tc/resolutions/20141202-project-structure-reform-spec.html
[2] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/636956/

> --
> Chris Dent                       ٩◔̯◔۶           https://anticdent.org/
> freenode: cdent                                         tw: @anticdent
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