On 13/12/13 10:44 -0500, Russell Bryant wrote:
On 12/13/2013 10:37 AM, Flavio Percoco wrote:
On 13/12/13 15:53 +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:
Hi everyone,

TL;DR: Incubation is getting harder, why not ask efforts to apply
for a new program first to get the visibility they need to grow.

Long version:

Last cycle we introduced the concept of "Programs" to replace
the concept of "Official projects" which was no longer working
that well for us. This was recognizing the work of existing
teams, organized around a common mission, as an integral part of
"delivering OpenStack". Contributors to programs become ATCs, so
they get to vote in Technical Committee (TC) elections. In
return, those teams place themselves under the authority of the
TC.

This created an interesting corner case. Projects applying for
incubation would actually request two concurrent things: be
considered a new "Program", and give "incubated" status to a code
repository under that program.

Over the last months we significantly raised the bar for
accepting new projects in incubation, learning from past
integration and QA mistakes. The end result is that a number of
promising projects applied for incubation but got rejected on
maturity, team size, team diversity, or current integration level
grounds.

At that point I called for some specific label, like "Emerging
Technology" that the TC could grant to promising projects that
just need more visibility, more collaboration, more
crystallization before they can make good candidates to be made
part of our integrated releases.

However, at the last TC meeting it became apparent we could
leverage "Programs" to achieve the same result. Promising efforts
would first get their mission, scope and existing results blessed
and recognized as something we'd really like to see in OpenStack
one day. Then when they are ready, they could have one of their
deliveries apply for incubation if that makes sense.

The consequences would be that the effort would place itself
under the authority of the TC. Their contributors would be ATCs
and would vote in TC elections, even if their deliveries never
make it to incubation. They would get (some) space at Design
Summits. So it's not "free", we still need to be pretty
conservative about accepting them, but it's probably manageable.

I'm still weighing the consequences, but I think it's globally
nicer than introducing another status. As long as the TC feels
free to revoke Programs that do not deliver the expected results
(or that no longer make sense in the new world order) I think
this approach would be fine.

Comments, thoughts ?



My first thought while reading this email was:

What happens if that "Emerging Technology" doesn't move forward?

Thierry addressed that at the very end of his message:

 As long as the TC feels free to revoke  Programs that do not deliver
 the expected results (or that no longer make sense in the new world
 order) I think this approach would be fine.

Yup, I just meant to say this was my first concern and that it needs
more clarification than just 'being able to revoke it'.


Will a Program with actual projects exist? (I personally think
this will create some confusion).

I guess the same thing would happen with incubated projects that
never graduate to integrated. However, the probability this would
happen are way lower. You also make a good point w.r.t ATCs and the
rights to vote.

-1 from me. I'd be even in favor to not calling any Program
official until there's an integrated *team* - not project - working
on it. Notice that I'm using the term 'team' and not projects.
Programs like 'Documentation' have an integrated team working on it
and are part of every release cycle, the same thing applies for the
"Release Cycle Management" program, etc.

We wouldn't create a program without an existing team doing some work
already.  We even have rules around now programs along side the rules
for incubating/graduating projects:

http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/governance/tree/reference/new-programs-requirements

That is exactly why I'm bringing this up. Programs play an important
role in OpenStack. More important than just saying: 'Hey, someone is
working on this area', which is why I think they shouldn't be
considered official unless there's an 'integrated' team working on them.

In other words, if a project applying for incubation doesn't fit into
one of the existing programs, we have to request it to create a
program and make it part of the incubation application, which is what
we do today.

Hopefully, I'm not missing the real benefits of this proposal. If I
am, then please, let me know. :)

Cheers,
FF

--
@flaper87
Flavio Percoco

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