On 05/11/2018 02:00 PM, Fox, Kevin M wrote: > Who are your users, what do they need, are you meeting those needs, and what > can you do to better things? > > If that can't be answered, how do you know if you are making progress or > staying relevant? > > Lines of code committed is not a metric of real progress. > Number of reviews isn't. > Feature addition metrics aren't necessarily if the features are not relevant. > Developer community size is not really a metric of progress either. (not a > bad thing. just doesn't grantee progress if devs are going in different > directions) > > If you can't answer them, how do separate things like, "devs are leaving > because the project is mature, from the overall project is really broken and > folks are just leaving?" > > Part of the disconnect to me has been that these questions have been left up > to the projects by and large. But, users don't use the projects. Users use > OpenStack. Or, moving forward, they at least use a Constellation. But > Constellation is still just a documentation construct. Not really a first > class entity. > > Currently the isolation between the Projects and the thing that the users > use, the Constellation allows for user needs to easily slip through the > cracks. Cause "Project X: we agree that is a problem, but its Y projects > problem. Project Y: we agree that is a problem, but its X projects problem." > No, seriously, its OpenStacks problem. Most of the major issues I've hit in > my many years of using OpenStack were in that category. And there wasn't a > good forum for addressing them.
I can think of a couple good example problems that probably fall into the category you've described. But, I wouldn't say it was solely because two or more projects were convinced the problem exists and it wasn't their responsibility (IMO, that at least seems like a broad generalization of the root of why cross-project issues take a long time). For example, the push for default roles surfaced in 2015 as an OpenStack-wide specification, but lost steam when we realized just how terrible the migration path would be for users. Eventually, a solution for that migration issue made it's way into the commons (oslo.policy) and enabled a Queens community goal. I think the leadership established through community goals makes this kind of work possible, even if it does take a while. > > A related effect of the isolation is also that the projects don't work on the > commons nor look around too much what others are doing. Either within > OpenStack or outside. They solve problems at the project level and say, look, > I've solved it, but don't look at what happens when all the projects do that > independently and push more work to the users. The end result of this lack of > Leadership is more work for the users compared to competitors. > > IMO, OpenStack really needs some Leadership at a higher level. It seems to be > lacking some things: > 1. A group that performs... lacking a good word.... reconnaissance? How is > OpenStack fairing in the world. How is the world changing and how must > OpenStack change to continue to be relevant. If you don't know you have a > problem you can't correct it. > 2. A group that decides some difficult political things, like who the users > are. Maybe at a per constellation level. This does not mean rejecting use > cases from "non users". just helping the projects sort out priorities. > 3. A group that decides on a general direction for OpenStack's technical > solutions, encourages building up the commons, helps break down the project > communication walls and picks homes for features when it takes too long for a > user need to be met (users really don't care what OpenStack project does what > feature. They just that they are suffering, things don't get addressed in a > timely manner, and will maybe consider looking outside of OpenStack for a > solution) This sounds like the group of people who propose, review, and implement community goals. > > The current governance structure is focused on hoping the individual projects > will look at the big picture and adjust to it, and commit the relevant common > code to the commons rather then one-offing a solution and discussing > solutions between projects to gain consensus. But that's generally not > happening. The projects have a narrow view of the world and just wanna make > progress on their code. I get that. The other bits are hard. Guidance to the > projects on how they are are, or are not fitting, would help them make better > choices and better code. > > The focus so much on projects has made us loose sight of why they exist. To > serve the Users. Users don't use projects as OpenStack has defined them > though. And we can't even really define what a user is. This is a big problem. > > Anyway, more Leadership please! Ready..... GO! :) > > Thanks, > Kevin > > ________________________________________ > From: Jay Pipes [jaypi...@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 9:31 AM > To: openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org > Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [all] Topics for the Board+TC+UC meeting in > Vancouver > > On 05/11/2018 12:21 PM, Zane Bitter wrote: >> On 11/05/18 11:46, Jay Pipes wrote: >>> On 05/10/2018 08:12 PM, Zane Bitter wrote: >>>> On 10/05/18 16:45, Matt Riedemann wrote: >>>>> On 5/10/2018 3:38 PM, Zane Bitter wrote: >>>>>> How can we avoid (or get out of) the local maximum trap and ensure >>>>>> that OpenStack will meet the needs of all the users we want to >>>>>> serve, not just those whose needs are similar to those of the users >>>>>> we already have? >>>>> The phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind here. >>>> Stipulating the constraint that you can't please everybody, how do >>>> you ensure that you're meeting the needs of the users who are most >>>> important to the long-term sustainability of the project, and not >>>> just the ones who were easiest to bootstrap? >>> Who gets to decide who the users are "that are most important to the >>> long-term sustainability of the project"? >> The thing I'm hoping to convince people of here is that the question is >> interesting independently of how you define that. > Agreed. The question is interesting regardless, but how seriously people > take the answers to the question will depend on how much they agree with > the people that decide who the "important users" are. > > Best, > -jay > > __________________________________________________________________________ > OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) > Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev > > __________________________________________________________________________ > OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) > Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
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