It does seem that the community would find this useful. I agree with Robert that it has downsides and it is not appropriate all the time.
We added https://beam.apache.org/roadmap/ a little while ago. I think that the granularity of a BIP is about the same as the granularity of what we would want to show to users on a roadmap on our public site. So we sort of already have this. Perhaps we want to formalize changes to the roadmap and only include voted upon approved BIPs on the roadmap on the web site. The current roadmap should be viewed as a crowd sourced bootstrap, for sure. Imagine a roadmap that a company shares with a customer. The most important thing is to be extremely clear about what is intended to be built, when it is expected, and how they can follow the developments. And for the open source community, it should be clear what they can expect to work on and know that the project / PMC has agreed on the feature and will not push back after some effort has been put into it. Kenn On Tue, Dec 17, 2019 at 11:07 AM Jan Lukavský <je...@seznam.cz> wrote: > Hi, > > I feel a "soft consensus" :) that people see some benefits of introducing > (possibly optional) process of proposing new features. > > I think that in order to proceed with this we need to agree on goals that > we want to achieve. Whether the process should or should not be optional, > which form it should have, and answers on all these other questions could > be answered after that. > > So, I'll try to state some issues I see with our current approach, please > feel free to correct any of them, or add any other: > > - due to the "soft consensus" approach, we actually delegate the final > responsibility of "feature acceptance" to reviewer(s) - these might or > might not be happy with that > > - by splitting this into first-consensus-then-implementation-then-review > approach, we remove the burden of responsibility of respective feature from > reviewers - they can focus only on the main purpose of the review - that is > verifying the quality of code > > - as mentioned before, this brings better visibility to (core) features > > - and last but not least makes it possible to prioritize work and build > more complex long-term goals > > I think it is essential to have a consensus on whether or not these are > some points we want to target (that is, we see our current approach as > sub-optimal in these areas) or not. > > Jan > On 12/17/19 7:08 PM, Pablo Estrada wrote: > > It seems that lots of people see benefit in a more formalized BIP process. > I think that makes sense, though I'd like to give people the freedom to > choose the medium for their design discussions. > > The projects I'm aware of usually do this through wiki-type mediums. We > have cwiki, though lots of people like working with Gdocs' collaboration > features. Are there other mediums that could be used for this? > > A possible implementation is: We could keep cwiki as the 'index' - so > anyone proposing a new BIP would have to add a new BIP entry in the cwiki, > but they'd be free to link to a Gdoc from there, or to develop the proposal > in the cwiki entry itself. > > Thoughts? > Best > -P. > > On Tue, Dec 17, 2019 at 9:14 AM Maximilian Michels <m...@apache.org> wrote: > >> The main benefit of BIPs I see is the visibility they create for the >> project users and contributors. >> >> Right now, we have a long unordnered list of design documents. Some of >> the documents are not even in that list. With BIPs, we would end up with >> an ordered list "BIP-1, BIP-2, .." which reflects important design >> decisions over time. >> >> Simply assigning an id, makes it a lot more formal. In my eyes, the id >> assignment would also require that you communicate the changes in a way >> that the community can accept the proposal, preferably via lazy >> consensus. All in all, this could help communicate changes in Beam better. >> >> JIRA, on the other hand, contains concrete implementation steps and all >> kinds of other changes. >> >> Cheers, >> Max >> >> On 16.12.19 21:41, Robert Bradshaw wrote: >> > Additional process is a two-edged sword: it can help move stuff >> > forward, to the correct decision, but it can also add significant >> > overhead. >> > >> > I think there are many proposals for which the existing processes of >> > deriving consensus (over email, possibly followed by a formal vote or >> > lazy consensus) are sufficient. However, sometimes they're not. >> > Specifically, for long-term roadmaps, it would be useful to have them >> > in a standard place that can be tracked and understood (I don't think >> > we've been able to use JIRA effectively for this here). I also think >> > there are some proposals that reach a certain level of complexity that >> > trying to address them by occasionally responding to email threads as >> > they come up is insufficient. For these latter, I think there is a >> > need for commitment for a group of people in the community to commit >> > to clearly defining and driving a solution to the problem via a more >> > formal process. Often the one making the proposal has sufficient >> > motivation, but sometimes what lacks is be (non-sporadic) investment >> > by those trying to understand, evaluate, and incorporate the proposal. >> > >> > So I'm (strongly) +1 for exploring a more formal process, but -1 on >> > requiring it. >> > >> > On Sun, Dec 15, 2019 at 1:07 AM Jan Lukavský <je...@seznam.cz> wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi, >> >> >> >> thanks for reactions so far. I agree that there are many questions >> that have to be clarified. I'd propose to split this into two parts: >> >> >> >> a) first reach a consensus that we want this process in the first >> place >> >> >> >> b) after that, we need to clarify all the details - that will >> probably be somewhat iterative procedure >> >> >> >> I'm not sure if there is something more we need to clarify before we >> can cast a vote on (a). >> >> >> >> Thoughts? >> >> >> >> Jan >> >> >> >> On 12/10/19 3:46 PM, Łukasz Gajowy wrote: >> >> >> >> +1 for formalizing the process, enhancing it and documenting clearly. >> >> >> >> I noticed that Apache Airflow has a cool way of both creating AIPs and >> keeping track of all of them. There is a "Create new AIP" button on their >> Confluence. This way, no AIP gets lost and all are kept in one place. >> Please keep in mind that this is also the problem we want to solve in Beam >> and try to keep track of all the documents we have so far*. It's certainly >> good to solve that problem too, if possible. >> >> >> >> Also the AIP structure is something that I find nice - There's place >> for all additional resources, JIRAs, discussion in comments and state of >> the proposal. Even if we don't choose to use Confluence, we definitely >> could use a similar template with all that information for our google docs >> proposals or any other tool we stick to. >> >> >> >> Thanks! >> >> >> >> *thank you, Ismael and Alexey, for all the reminders under the >> proposals to add them to Confluence list! :) >> >> >> >> wt., 10 gru 2019 o 13:29 jincheng sun <sunjincheng...@gmail.com> >> napisał(a): >> >>> >> >>> Thanks for bring up this discussion Jan! >> >>> >> >>> +1 for cearly define BIP for beam. >> >>> >> >>> And I think would be nice to initialize a concept document for BIP. >> Just a reminder: the document may contains: >> >>> >> >>> - How many kinds of improvement in beam. >> >>> - What kind of improvement should to create a BIP. >> >>> - What should be included in a BIP. >> >>> - Who can create the BIP. >> >>> - Who can participate in the discussion of BIP and who can vote for >> BIP. >> >>> - What are the possible limitations of BiP, such as whether it is >> necessary to complete the dev of BIP in one release. >> >>> - How to track a BIP. >> >>> >> >>> Here is a question: I found out a policy[1] in beam, but only >> contains the poilcy of release , my question is does beam have something >> called Bylaws? Similar as Flink[1]. >> >>> >> >>> Anyway, I like your proposals Jan :) >> >>> >> >>> Best, >> >>> Jincheng >> >>> [1] https://beam.apache.org/community/policies/ >> >>> [2] >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLINK/Flink+Bylaws#FlinkBylaws-Approvals >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> David Morávek <david.mora...@gmail.com> 于2019年12月10日周二 下午2:33写道： >> >>>> >> >>>> Hi Jan, >> >>>> >> >>>> I think this is more pretty much what we currently do, just a little >> bit more transparent for the community. If the process is standardized, it >> can open doors for bigger contributions from people not familiar with the >> process. Also it's way easier to track progress of BIPs, than documents >> linked from the mailing list. >> >>>> >> >>>> Big +1 ;) >> >>>> >> >>>> D. >> >>>> >> >>>> On Sun, Dec 8, 2019 at 12:42 PM Jan Lukavský <je...@seznam.cz> >> wrote: >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Hi, >> >>>>> >> >>>>> I'd like to revive a discussion that was taken some year and a half >> ago >> >>>>> [1], which included a concept of "BIP" (Beam Improvement Proposal) >> - an >> >>>>> equivalent of "FLIP" (flink), "KIP" (kafka), "SPIP" (spark), and so >> on. >> >>>>> >> >>>>> The discussion then ended without any (public) conclusion, so I'd >> like >> >>>>> to pick up from there. There were questions related to: >> >>>>> >> >>>>> a) how does the concept of BIP differ from simple plain JIRA? >> >>>>> >> >>>>> b) what does it bring to the community? >> >>>>> >> >>>>> I'd like to outline my point of view on both of these aspects (they >> are >> >>>>> related). >> >>>>> >> >>>>> BIP differs from JIRA by definition of a process: >> >>>>> >> >>>>> BIP -> vote -> consensus -> JIRA -> implementation >> >>>>> >> >>>>> This process (although it might seem a little unnecessary formal) >> brings >> >>>>> the following benefits: >> >>>>> >> >>>>> i) improves community's overall awareness of planned and >> in-progress >> >>>>> features >> >>>>> >> >>>>> ii) makes it possible to prioritize long-term goals (create >> "roadmap" >> >>>>> that was mentioned in the referred thread) >> >>>>> >> >>>>> iii) by casting explicit vote on each improvement proposal >> diminishes >> >>>>> the probability of wasted work - as opposed to our current state, >> where >> >>>>> it is hard to tell when there is a consensus and what actions need >> to be >> >>>>> done in order to reach one if there isn't >> >>>>> >> >>>>> iv) BIPs that eventually pass a vote can be regarded as "to be >> >>>>> included in some short term" and so new BIPs can build upon them, >> >>>>> without the risk of having to be redefined if their dependency for >> >>>>> whatever reason don't make it to the implementation >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Although this "process" might look rigid and corporate, it actually >> >>>>> brings better transparency and overall community health. This is >> >>>>> especially important as the community grows and becomes more and >> more >> >>>>> distributed. There are many, many open questions in this proposal >> that >> >>>>> need to be clarified, my current intent is to grab a grasp about >> how the >> >>>>> community feels about this. >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Looking forward to any comments, >> >>>>> >> >>>>> Jan >> >>>>> >> >>>>> [1] >> >>>>> >> https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/4e1fffa2fde8e750c6d769bf4335853ad05b360b8bd248ad119cc185%40%3Cdev.beam.apache.org%3E >> >>>>> >> >
