On 16-09-07 12:20 PM, Barrett, Carol L wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Dague [mailto:s...@dague.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2016 9:05 AM
To: openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [all] Timeframe for future elections & "Release
stewards"
On 09/07/2016 11:43 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
Hi everyone,
As you probably know by now, starting with the Boston event in 2017,
the Summit will happen further away from the release day and more
around the middle of the next development cycle. You can find more
info on the rationale for that at [1] and [2] if interested, this is
not the topic of this email.
One interesting side-effect is that since the timing of the election
period (for PTL and TC positions) is defined in the TC charter[3]
relative to the *Summit*, it means that (unless we change this) we'll
now run elections to renew PTL and TC positions in the middle of the
cycle. Crazy, right ? That's what I first thought. But after
discussing it with various people, this is not as crazy as it sounds.
First, the current election timing is not perfect -- we change PTLs in
the middle of the design summit prep, with old PTLs making Design
Summit space requests that will affect their successor. It's not as if
there was a perfect timing for doing elections.
Second, release cycles are longer than 6 months. They actually start a
few months before actual development starts, with discussions on next
cycle priorities and Design Summit prep. They continue a few months
after release, with critical stable branch backports and communication
about landed features. So they are one year-long, overlapping cycles
(like explained on the diagram at [4]). With that in mind, the PTL/TC
election actually would happen just before the start of the start of
the requirements-gathering pre-development phase of the next
development cycle, which makes a lot of sense.
Now, the main drawback of holding elections in the middle of a
development cycle is that you don't want to introduce a discontinuity
in leadership in that development cycle. To mitigate that, we propose
the introduction of a new role, the "release steward", which would be
attached to the release cycle. That person (who may or may not double
as
PTL) would be responsible for a complete release cycle on a given
project team, from requirements gathering phase to post-release
bugfix-backport phase. A sort of per-cycle release liaison on steroids.
Since development cycles overlap, there would be two active release
stewards at all times. This would help with the awkward situation
where the PTL ends up having to think about the next cycle and prepare
the Design Summit (or PTG) while still being knee-deep juggling with
feature freeze exceptions, getting the current release out of the
door, and coordinating early critical fixes stable backports. Those
two jobs could be held by two different people.
Now, some teams (especially those doing intermediary releases) may
want to use the same super-human to handle everything (PTL, release
steward,
release+1 steward), and some others might use two or three humans to
spread the load. That's up to them. But once designated by the
newly-elected PTL, the release steward would be responsible for the
full release cycle and would not be displaced by the next PTL 6 months later.
One year being a long time, if a steward needs to step down, the
currently-active PTL would appoint someone else to finish the job.
With this new concept I think we can get the best of both worlds, and
keep the election period as currently defined in the charter (rather
than having to change it). The PTLs we will elect in the coming weeks
won't be renewed before April, 2017 -- while Pike development will
start in February.
I know this can all be a bit confusing, so feel free to reach out to
me with questions on this.
[1] http://www.openstack.org/ptg
[2] http://www.openstack.org/ptg/ptgfaq/
[3]
http://governance.openstack.org/reference/charter.html#election-for-pt
l-seats
[4]
http://www.openstack.org/themes/openstack/images/summit-ptg-timeline-r
evised.png
I think another option would be to run the PTL election early, but just don't have the
turn over happen until the master release opens up. The current transition period is
> > >
actually quite short as noted by the comments around how design summit planning
happens. Having the PTL-next elected half way through the cycle, but having PTL
current >
still > own landing the current release actually provides a lot more transition
time.
-Sean
I had a similar thought to Sean's, with a few changes. Why not have a PTL own
the release from start to finish, with the PTL for the next release getting
elected as above. In this model, it would probably be advisable (or a
guideline) that a PTL not run for 2 cycles in a row, because the work load
would be unmanageable. This approach could help to grow a stronger leadership
pipeline for each project and provide more opportunities for people in the team
to grow their skills and take on leadership.
Carol
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The responsibilities of a PTL is larger than focusing on a release.
Many projects have taken very specific stances on certain topics that
span releases. The guidance and decision of the PTL at the time has
always been a crucial part of these direction decisions for each
individual project. Thinking of the PTL role in terms of releases fails
to honour the larger responsibility every PTL accepts in envisioning how
their project collaborates with other OpenStack pieces, individual
releases notwithstanding.
Thank you,
Anita.
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