> These are important and difficult questions. As you say, OpenStack is > many different things to different people. So far we survived while > avoiding to answer clearly, mostly because we had no good way of coming > up with answers. That ultimately creates tension between participants in > our community when the different models clash. >
Yes, these are difficult questions. I'm don't agree with the assertion that there was no good way of coming up with answers, but for a variety of reasons, we did not. You say OpenStack has survived, but I believe we may have compounded and multiplied the challenges OpenStack faces by collectively neglecting to resolve this. Without going into all the technical necessity and political complexity, I would argue we allowed OpenStack fragmentation at the project level. Without a unified conscience of purpose, the fragmentation only gets magnified at the point users are interacting with different deployments. I want to also respond to the idea that OpenStack can be seen like the Linux kernel. This is a point I made and articulated early in the OpenStack discussion. The artifacts of my using that analogy date back to the Fall of 2010: http://www.slideshare.net/littleidea/open-stack-sdforum/44 http://www.slideshare.net/littleidea/openstack-summit-a-community-of-service-providers/27 I don't believe that the kernel is a perfect analogy, but even if it was this one sentence 'OpenStack is like the Linux kernel' will not make it so. Linus Torvalds provides both technical oversight and the kind of conscience I keep referring to. What is the OpenStack equivalent of this? https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/3/8/495 I suggest everyone read the whole email from Linus at that link. On some level, this attitude is what prevents a preponderance of the tension we have recently seen in OpenStack mailing lists. Granted, it implies other more pointed conflict, but some of that is Linus being Linus. The very real choice in these types of projects is between resolving open conflict early and often or sublimated conflicts that tend to erupt with a vengeance later. > My hope is that the formation of the Foundation will help providing a > forum for this discussion, and a mechanism to come with clearer answers. > I actually see that as the main mission of the Foundation for the first > year. I share this hope, but I also don't think we should abdicate all responsibility for this to the Foundation. We are all ostensibly individual members of the foundation, if not corporate members. OpenStack will be what we collectively make it. Cheers, Andrew
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