Open Stack

On Mar 24, 2011, at 11:54 AM, Jay Pipes wrote:

> Well said, Vish. A few comments inline below. The parts I snipped out
> were the ones I entirely agree with or had no comments on...
> 
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 2:55 AM, Vishvananda Ishaya
> <vishvananda at gmail.com> wrote:
>> OpenStack Project Integration
>> 
>> Another responsibility of the PTL is to make sure that Nova is
>> well-integrated with the other openstack components.  The PTL needs to have
>> a clear picture of new and needed features in glance and swift, as well as
>> any new projects that are added to OpenStack.
>> 
>> It is also vital that we focus on common components over the next couple
>> releases.  If we don't do this the projects will gradually grow apart, and
>> it will be very difficult to present a coherent OpenStack deployment
>> involving all of the projects.  The most important first-step in my mind is
>> Authn/Authz.  A common authentication system will do wonders for keeping the
>> projects aligned.
> 
> Much agreed on authn/authz, as I think that is an area that we can
> achieve agreement on.
> 
> But for other things like configuration/CLI options, there is quite a
> bit of disagreement between the projects. Discussions in the past
> about stuff like this has devolved into either non-productive
> flame-war-like threads or non-productive compromises that nobody is
> happy with and so nobody uses them.
> 
> The danger of having a PTL focusing on integration efforts with
> openstack-common is having the PTL's attention be sucked down the
> black hole of endless discussions about code style and what "the best
> practice" is for doing X. Not saying it's an unworthy goal to achieve
> some commonality, but the PTL shouldn't, IMO, be the driver here.
> Better to have some working group devoted to finding common ground.
> The PTL could end up being on that working group, but could just as
> likely not be on it.

This is a good point, it could definitely become a distraction.  I think that the PTLs of the various projects need to work together to help drive openstack-common.  That doesn't mean that they should be the prime contributors to the project, just that they need to evangelize and keep their eyes open for duplicated work that could move into common.  A working group sounds like a great idea.

> 
>> Code Consistency
>> 
>> We must spend time cleaning up pylint scores and vetting the unit tests and
>> various parts of the code for common style.  We need a clear developer guide
>> and toolset configuration examples for new developers.  These will allow new
>> developers become productive more quickly.
> 
> Again, this will meet with disagreement between the teams working on
> the various projects. Or are you specifically referring to the Nova
> code consistency here? Because I'm pretty sure the Swift devs aren't
> going to be interested in having Swift's code look and feel like
> Nova's codebase, and asking for cross-project code style consistency
> is going to be one of those black hole conversations, with various
> groups insisting their way is the "right" way, etc. And here, I don't
> just mean stuff in pep8, but the focus on object-orientation, the use
> of various libraries, the use of various abstraction techniques, etc,
> etc.

Consistency was referring to consistency within a project.  I don't imagine that the teams will be in perfect agreement on anything.  I would hope that the PTLs stay in communication and keep an open discussion about these topics though.

> 
> To repeat, all the snipped parts of your message (most of it), I
> completely agree with and fully support you.
> 
> Cheers,
> -jay