Open Stack

On 05/02/2014 05:47 AM, Narayan Desai wrote:
> tl;dr: openstack is starting to feel like a tv show called "when
> developers attack" 

I respect your opinion but I strongly disagree with it: there is no
attack, there is no "fight" between developers and operators. There is
friction but no deliberate attempt to harm (as the term 'attack'
implies). Quite the contrary is true instead: I can see deliberate
attempts to oil and reduce friction at different spots in our community.

There is a strong and concerted effort to make sure that operators'
opinions are taken in proper consideration by OpenStack developers. The
OpenStack Foundation started regular meetings with operators to collect
feedback and identify issues. The first happened a couple months ago,
another one is being scheduled, at 6 months interval. For quite some
time, during the Summits, the Foundation had dedicated Operators tracks
and we keep introducing more operators-specific events (see Tom's
earlier message).

Outside of the Foundation, the developers community sent quite strong
signals recently with the election of Michael Still, whose platform as
PTL is all about listening to people and "producing reliable production
grade code"[1]. Russell Bryant's effort to change how Nova blueprints
are discussed and approved also is a strong signal from the developers
that they listen to operators and want to have their involvement.

I can see why you're upset though: change is slow to happen, this effort
may be too little, too late. Objectively though, look at the numbers:
thousands of occasional developers, hundreds of committed developers
need to be steered while running.

> We've seen features proposed for removal (not just in nova) because of
> lack of testing coverage. Features that have been integrated for years,
> that we've been using in production *for years without any problems*. 
> 
> Getting new code integrated is a nightmare. Take a look at this:
> https://review.openstack.org/#/c/65113/

That's an unfortunate case but I read this differently from you. To me
this is a typical case of a blueprint approved without a proper
discussion and planning phase. Russell and Mark McClain+Kyle Mestery put
forward a fix for this sort of issues already for Nova[2] and
Neutron[3]; let's see how these work out in Juno.

> The feedback loops from users/ops continue to be broken. Tim's efforts
> on behalf of the user committee are important steps in the right
> direction, but the developer culture is openstack culture in a deep way.
> Operators continue to be on the outside.

What else would you suggest we can all do besides what is already being
put in place?

Thanks,
Stef


[1]
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-March/031305.html
[2] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Blueprints#Nova
[3] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Blueprints#Neutron

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