Open Stack

----- Original Message ----- 

> From: "Nick Chase" <nchase at mirantis.com>
> To: "Atul Jha" <Atul.Jha at csscorp.com>
> Cc: openstack-docs at lists.openstack.org, "Shaun McCance" <shaunm at gnome.org>,
> "Steve Gordon" <sgordon at redhat.com>
> Sent: Friday, July 12, 2013 9:12:06 AM
> Subject: RE: [Openstack-docs] Linking to external install guides

> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > On the other hand, we are here to document OpenStack, not all of the
> > > independent distros, so there's no shame in removing that from our
> > > launch day scope.
> > >
> > > </snip>
> > >
> > >
> > > Are you saying we should have only announcement about new release & no
> > > install instruction?
> > >
> > > Is it?
> >
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > No, just the opposite. I'm saying we should have A basic, fairly distro-
> > neutral set of install instructions. We Can then leave the distros to do
> > their own thing.
> >
> > </snip>
> >
> > Kindly clarify. I just hope we are not putting install from source
> > instruction i.e distro-neutral install instruction.
> If that's that's the only true "distro neutral" way, and it's not desirable,
> is there another option? Are you saying Canonical is usually caught up for
> Ubuntu? I'm not suggesting any particular way, just that we provide enough
> information to give people the general idea, then send them on their way. I
> don't have any preferece for what that looks like.

Ultimately there is no way to document deployment that is *entirely* distribution neutral (well, other than perhaps using something like devstack - maybe that is a valid approach for bare bones release day install documentation, I don't know?) due to the need to install and configure supporting infrastructure such as the database, queuing, etc. The difference of course is the packaging of those components is far more static, predictable, and most importantly available relative to the OpenStack packaging which most likely wont exist on 0-day, though it is likely to follow shortly thereafter. 

My concern with documenting installation from source is it seems like creating deployment documentation for release day and release day only. I would question whether users are likely to want to use this installation method once any form of packaging is available (and again I'm explicitly not talking about the more advanced stuff like Foreman, Fuel, PackStack, etc. - just RPMs/DEBs/etc.) - the counter argument that is being posed here of course is "well packaging isn't OpenStack anyway and at that point users should go to their distribution-specific documentation site". 

Thanks,

Steve