Flavio, Glance and OpenStack benefited during your reign or period of humble service. Will miss you at the helm. Also thank you for anointing/attracting two new solid cores: Brian and Sabari Malini
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Fifield [mailto:t...@openstack.org] Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2016 7:55 PM To: openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [glance] Glance Mitaka: Passing the torch A beautiful post, sir. Thank you for everything! On 09/03/16 22:15, Flavio Percoco wrote: > > Greetings, > > I'm not going to run for Glance's PTL position for the Newton timeframe. > > There are many motivations behind this choice. Some of them I'm > willing to discuss in private if people are interested but I'll go as > far as saying there are personal and professional reasons for me to > not run again. > > As I've always done in my past cycles as PTL, I'd like to take some > time to summarize what's happened in the past cycle not only for the > new PTL to know what's coming up but for the community to know how > things went. > > Before I even start, I'd like to thank everyone in the Glance community. > I truly > believe this was a great cycle for the project and the community has > gotten stronger. None of this would have been possible without the > help of all of you and for that, I'm deeply in debt with you all. It > does not just take an employer to get someone to contribute to a > project. Being paid, for those who are, to do Open Source is not > enough. It takes passion, motivation and a lot of patience to analyze > a technology, think out of the box and look for ways it can be > improved either by fixing bugs or by implementing new features. The > amount of time and dedication this process requires is probably worth > way more than what we get back from it. > > Now, with all that being said, here's Glance Mitaka for all of you: > > Completed Features > ================== > > I think I've mentioned this already but I'm proud of it so I'll say it > again. > The prioritization and scheduling of Glance Mitaka went so well that > we managed to release M-3 without any feature freeze exception (FFE) > request. This doesn't mean all the features were implemented. In fact, > at least 4 were pushed back to Newton. However, the team communicated, > reviewed, sprinted and coded in such a way that we were able to > re-organize the schedule to avoid wasting time on things we new > weren't going to make it. This required transparency and hard > decisions but that's part of the job, right? > > * [0] CIM Namespace Metadata > * [1] Support download from and upload to Cinder volumes > * [2] Glance db purge utility > * [3] Deprecate Glance v3 API > * [4] Implement trusts for Glance > * [5] Migrate the HTTP Store to Use Requests > * [6] Glance Image Signing and Verification > * [7] Supporting OVF Single Disk Image Upload > * [8] Prevention of Unauthorized errors during upload/download in > Swift driver > * [9] Add filters using an ‘in’ operator > > [0] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/cim-namespace-metadata-definitions.html > > [1] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/cinder-store-upload-download.html > > [2] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/database-purge.html > > [3] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/deprecate-v3-api.html > > [4] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/glance-trusts.html > > [5] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/http-store-on-requests.html > > [6] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/image-signing-and-verification-support.html > > [7] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/ovf-lite.html > > [8] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/prevention-of-401-in-swift-driver.html > > [9] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/specs/mitaka/impleme > nted/v2-add-filters-with-in-operator.html > > > If the above doesn't sound impressive to you, let me fill you in with > some extra info about Glance's community. > > Community > ========= > > Glance's community currently has 12 core members, 3 of which joined > during Mitaka and 2 of those 3 members joined at the end of the cycle. > That means the team ran on 9 reviewers for most of the cycle except > that out of those 9, 1 left the team and joined later in the cycle and > 3 folks weren't super active this cycle. That left the team with 5 > constant reviewers throughout the cycle. > > Now, the above is *NOT* to say that the success of the cycle is thanks > to those > 5 constant reviewers. On the contrary, it's to say that we've managed > to build a community capable of working together with other non-core > reviewers. > This was a > key thing for this cycle. > > I don't think it's a secret to anyone that, at the beginning of the > cycle, the community was fragile and somewhat split. There were > different opinions on what Glance should (or shouldn't) look like, > what new features Glance should (or > shouldn't) have and where the project should be headed in the next 6 > months. > > The team sat down, the team talked and the team agreed on what the > project should be and that's what the team did in the Mitaka cycle. > Sharing one message with the rest of the OpenStack community (and > especially new Glance > contributors) was a key for the community to become stronger. > > What changed? What did the community do differently? > > Priorities and Goals > -------------------- > > Mitaka was the first cycle that Glance strictly followed a list of > priorities [0]. Funny enough, 2 of those priorities didn't make it in > Mitaka but we'll get to that in a bit. > > The list of priorities didn't do it all by itself. The list of > priorities gave us a target, a goal. It helped us to remain focused. > It kept us on track. > However, it did way more than that. The list of priorities allowed us for: > > * Sending a clear message of what the community has agreed on and where the > community is headed > * Selecting a narrow list of features that we would be able to work on and > review throughout the cycle > * Scheduling and splitting reviews to accommodate the priorities > > Of those points, I believe the second one is the one that really did > it for us. > We kept the set of new features small so that we could focus on what > was important. We had more proposals than we approved and we rejected > the rest based on our priorities. This is something I'd like to see > happening again in Glance and I'd like to encourage the next PTL to do > the same and be *strict* about it. > > [0] > http://specs.openstack.org/openstack/glance-specs/priorities/mitaka-pr > iorities.html > > > Reduce the review backlog > ------------------------- > > We abandoned patches [0]! We removed from the review queue all the > patches that, for 2 or more months, had been in merge conflict, had > had -1/-2 from cores or had had -1 from jenkins (hope I'm not missing > something here). We did that and we made the backlog shorter, we kept > in the review list what was really relevant at that moment. > > Something important about the above is that we didn't abandon patches > that had stalled for lack of reviews. We prioritized those, we bumped > those to the top of our review list and we provided the reviews those > patches deserved. Some of them landed, some didn't but the important > bit is that those patches were reviewed. > Glance's current backlog (verified patches, Workflow 0 and no -2s) is > less than > 90 patches across all projects (likely way less than that but I just > did a rough > count) and the most important thing is that *ALL* these patches have > received reviews in 2016. Now, if you don't think this is great, you > should have seen our backlog before. > > Now, there's no point in cleaning up the review queue if we're going > to let it fill up again. Right? This is where the community > awesomeness comes to light. We created a review dashboard[1], which > some folks used to organize their reviews. I found it super useful, I > used it to prioritize my reviews and help other folks to prioritize > theirs. When you're given an organized list of reviews rather than > just a list of random reviews, it's *way* easier for you to know what > to review. > That right there is the key. To know what to review. I believe, in > Mitaka, the team knew what to focus on and the team also knew someone > in the community was ready to provide a fresher, cleaner, list of > reviews they could focus on. Some folks would prefer to go and make up > a list themselves, others will prefer to have one ready. Either way, > having a clear story of where the focus should go is the key to help > reviews move faster. Remove the noise, it distracts from people from > what's really important. > > [0] http://stackalytics.com/?user_id=glance...@mailinator.com > [1] http://bit.ly/glance-dashboard > > Review Days > ----------- > > Not really a new thing. This has happened before and we just kept > doing it. The difference, perhaps, is that we increased the number of > review days in the cycle. We tried to do at least 1 review day per > milestone and we're now doing a Review Monday until the end of the > cycle to get as many bug fixes as possible in before the release. RC1 > is looking good already! > > So, if you'd ask me, I believe what changed was the community. The > community got together, polished some things, and focused on what's > important *the project*. > If you read between lines, the above shows one constant pattern, the > community matured and it found what its placed in the OpenStack > community. > > Single Team > ----------- > > The Glance team is now back to being a single reviewing machine rather > than several, isolated, teams with specific tasks, which sometimes > ended up duplicated. The Glance Driver's team has been merged into the > Glance Core team and the Glare team (Artifacts) is not using the Fast > Track anymore. > > Having smaller teams has resulted in a very useful thing to do for > other projects. Depending on the size of the project, it'd be possible > to map tasks to smaller teams and then reduce them once the job is > done ;). > Unfortunately, given > Glance's team size, this ended up adding *more* things to do to > members of those smaller teams that were also part of the other teams > as well. > > One reason to mention this is because we'll have the temptation to do > this again in the future but, as it's been proven thus far, Glance's > community is not big enough to make such splits worth it and those end > up causing more harm to the community than good. > > Spec Freeze > ----------- > > The team incorporated a spec freeze in this cycle. The dates that were > picked were not the most ideal ones but the freeze helped a lot to > bring back focus on code reviews and coding. This freeze put a > timeline on folks to get their proposals ready, hence forcing them to > have enough time to implement such proposals. Having open milestones > distracts the community from the schedule. > Announcing such milestones in advance and providing constant reminders > helped with making sure folks were prepared and ready to react. > > > Was it all rainbows? > ==================== > > No, it was not. There were and there are *many* things we need to work > on and improve. For instance, 2 of the priorities didn't make it this > cycle. > One of > them (Nova's adoption of Glance's v2) simply requires a bit of more > work and it specifically requires a better alignment with the Nova > community's priorities. > In other words, Nova needs to make this a priority for them. > > The second priority that missed the deadline is the refactor of the > image import workflow. Some of you might be thinking "Guys, you had 1 > job, *ONE* job and it was to discuss and implement that refactor". > Well, turns out that such refactor has an impact on *every* cloud and > it's not something the team can afford to change a third time (yes, > this is the second time the image import workflow is refactored). I'm > actually happy it didn't make it in Mitaka because that gave the team > more time to evaluate the proposal that had been discussed at the > summit, the issues around it and the different alternatives. > Nonetheless, I am a > bit sad about how things evolved with this proposal because at the > very beginning of the cycle we were a bit naive in our planning of this work. > That is > to say, that we should've probably known from the beginning that we > wouldn't have had the time to implement this spec and that it would > have taken us the whole cycle to discuss it. The problem is not that > we didn't know it to begin with but the fact that we weren't able to > communicate that to the community from the beginning. I don't think > this is a big deal, though. We realized soon enough that we shouldn't > rush this and that dedicating the cycle to discuss this spec was more > better than rushing it and then have a poor implementation of it. > > We also experimented with a new process for lite specs and it was not > a huge success. This impacted some of the lite specs that had been > proposed but we did our best to come out of that situation without > impacting other's people work. In fact, that situation not just > highlighted the issues we had with the process but the team > responsible for it (the glance-drivers team), which ended up being > merged into the glance core team (as I mentioned in the previous > section). This process is being refactored and you can learn a bit > more about it in this review[0]. > > There's one more thing I wish we would have dedicated more time on. > That's tempest. Unfortunately, given the time available, size of the > team and the priorities we had, tempest did not receive as much love > as we'd have loved to. > There are several tempest tests that need to be cleaned up a bit, > especially on the V2 side. > > [0] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/282516/ > > To the Glance Community > ======================= > > All the credits for the above goes to you! As a PTL I don't think I > can take > *any* credit for what I consider a successful cycle brought by the > community itself. I instead recognize that it was all possible because > the community decided to go back to being awesome. I'm a believer that > the PTL's role is all about enabling the community to be awesome. > Planning, prioritization, scheduling, etc. it all serves a single > goal, which is to allow the community for doing what they know best > and focus on that. > > I've enjoyed every single of my stages in this community. Rushing > through reviews, coding like crazy, ranting like crazy, leading the > community and back to reviewing like crazy. These years as a member of > Glance's community have taught me a lot about this project and how > critical it is for the rest of the community. As I always say, it's > one of those projects that can take your whole cloud down without you > even noticing but I do hope you notice it. > > Glance is often referred to as a simple project (true), as a small > project (kinda true) and sometimes as not super cool (false). I'd like > to remind you that not only Glance is a "cool" project to work on but > it's also super critical for OpenStack. As I remind you this, I'd like > to urge you to help the project stay on track across the cycles. > Glance (as every other projects) depends on the ability of its > community to dictate what's best for it. > > Glance's interoperability has been compromised and there's a plan to > help bringing it back. Let's get that done. Glance's v1 is not > considered secure and it must be deprecated. Let's do that as well. > Glance's stability and security has shown some weaknesses. Let's not > ignore that. Working on new features is always sexy. Working on the > new cool stuff that other projects are doing might seem like a must do > task. I'd argue and say there's a time for everything and, while > Glance shares OpenStack's priorities, there are times where the > project needs to take a step back, put itself together again and start > again. I don't believe Glance has left that self-healing period and > I'd like to urge the whole community to keep this in mind. > > To the new PTL > ============== > > Listen! Listen to the things the OpenStack community has to say. > Listen to the things external folks have to say. Most importantly, > listen to what the Glance community has to say. Glance is not a > playground for making random decisions. If you listen to what the > community has to say, it'll be easy enough to know what to do and what > the next steps are. However, you should be ready for making hard > decisions and you need to have the courage to do so. During the last > elections, I wrote a post[0] about what being a PTL means and I'd like > to encourage you to read it, even if you've done so already. > > If you look at the goals we set for Glance during Mitaka and the > results we achieved, you'll soon notice what the priorities for the > next cycle should be. > The community will help shaping those priorities but the baseline is > there already. > > A great cycle is not measured on how many features the community is > able to implement. Therefore, I encourage you to not fall under the > temptation of approving as many specs as possible. It is *perfectly > fine* to say no to specs because they conflict with the project's > priorities. The more specs the team approves, the more code there will > be, the more people the project will need to complete the feature > (code wise and review wise). Keep the release small, keep it concise, > keep it focused. It's extremely important to communicate the intent of > the release to the rest of the community. Do not forget Glance *is* a > critical piece of every cloud. > > Glance's community is not formed by the core team. It's formed by > every person willing to dedicate time to the project either on reviews > or code. Work with them, encourage them. They *are* helping the > project. Some folks simply don't want to do reviews, that's fine. They > are still helping with code and bug fixes. > Recognize that and make sure they feel part of the community because > they are. > Expanding the core team is great as long as you can ensure folks in > the team are aligned with the team's priorities. Welcome new members > and do it gradually. > > One more thing, learn to delegate. During my time as a PTL, I relied > on other members as much as possible for keeping up with some tasks. > For instance, Erno Kuvaja helped immensely with releases and stable > maintenance, Nikhil Komawar kept the team updated about the > cross-project initiatives, Stuart Mclaren, Hemanth Makkapati and Brian > Rosmaita worked with the vulnerability team on security issues, etc. > Thanks to all of them for their immense help and I do hope you'll keep > up at what you're doing :). In other words, burnout is real and you > gotta take care of yourself too. Work with the community, there's no > need to take everything on your shoulders as you might end up dropping > some balls. When folks don't show up on reviews and they don't share > their opinions, do not give those as granted. Find them and ask for > it. > > And please, I beg you, let's get rid of v1! > > [0] http://blog.flaper87.com/post/something-about-being-a-ptl/ > > Thanks for reading this long email (or to at least have bothered to > skip till the end of it ;) Flavio > > P.S: I've posted this in my blog too: > http://blog.flaper87.com/post/glance-mitaka-passing-the-torch > / > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > ____ 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 __________________________________________________________________________ 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