Open Stack

On 12/06/2011 09:24 PM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Duncan McGreggor wrote:
>> On 06 Dec 2011 - 14:28, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>>> So the general consensus so far on this discussion seems to be:
>>>
>>> (0) The "2011.3 release" PPA bears false expectations and should be
>>> removed now. In the future, we should not provide such PPAs: 0-day
>>> packages for the release should be available from the "last milestone"
>>> PPA anyway.
>>>
>>> (1) OpenStack, as an upstream project, should focus on development
>>> rather than on providing a production-ready distribution.
>>>
>>> (2) We could provide "daily builds" from the stable/diablo branch for a
>>> variety of releases (much like what we do for the master branch), but
>>> those should be clearly marked "not for production use" and be
>>> best-effort only (like our master branch builds).
>>>
>>> (3) This should not prevent a group in the community from working on a
>>> project providing an "openstack on Lucid" production-ready distribution
>>> if they so wishes. This project would just be another distribution of
>>> OpenStack.
>> This doesn't seem like enough to me. OpenStack isn't just a library;
>> it's a fairly substantial collection of software and services, intended
>> to be used as a product. If it can't be used as a product, what's the
>> use?
>>
>> Someone made the suggestion that a new OpenStack group be started, one
>> whose focus is on producing a production-ready, distribution-ready,
>> release of the software. So can we add one more (need some help with
>> wording, here...):
>>
>> (4) OpenStack will accept and foster a new project, one that is not
>> focused on development, but rather the distribution and it's general
>> stability. This distro project will be responsible for advocating on
>> behalf of various operating systems/distros/sponsoring vendors for bugs
>> that affect performance and stability of OpenStack, or prevent an
>> operating system from running OpenStack.
> I don't think you need a project (openstack projects are about upstream
> software): you need a *team* to coordinate distribution efforts and make
> sure openstack projects are packageable etc.
>
> Like zul said, that team actually already informally exists and has an
> IRC channel :)
Packaging is a tremendous amount of work, I'm sure you agree on this otherwise this thread would not exist ;-) It is not upstream code development indeed. However the people working to package openstack provide valuable input to developers and patches that are not only essential to packaging but also to the useability of the components.

Creating a packaging team that acknowledge their contribution to the upstream project will show that the packagers contributions are an integral part of the openstack development, it would motivate new packagers to contribute their changes upstream instead of keeping them in a patch directory within the package.

I think there is an opportunity to leverage the momentum that is growing in each distribution by creating an openstack team for them to meet. Maybe Stefano Maffulli has an idea about how to go in this direction. The IRC channel was a great idea and it could become more.

Good packages make a huge difference when it comes to deploying a solution made of numerous components. A packaging team that spans all openstack components would reduce the workload as intended while keeping the subject on the agenda.

Cheers

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