On Wed, Sep 7, 2016 at 12:35 PM, Ian Cordasco <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monty Taylor <[email protected]>
> Reply: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) 
> <[email protected]>
> Date: September 7, 2016 at 10:58:52
> To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Subject:  Re: [openstack-dev] [all] Timeframe for future elections & "Release 
> stewards"
>
>> On 09/07/2016 10:43 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.
>>
>> I think this is a great idea. Having a person be on point for a
>> particular release from inception to whenever we stop caring about it
>> makes a lot of sense.
>
> I agree. Regardless of how PTL elections end up working, I think we should 
> definitely move forward with this "Release Stewards" concept. It sounds like 
> an excellent idea.

Also since "Release Stewards" are nominated by PTL, projects can just
start using this concept right away (as it's not an elected position).
+1 from me.

> One question, should "Release Stewards" also be members of the Stable Team 
> for that project or will they become members of the Stable Team? It seems 
> like there should be a relationship there to me (although maybe not a 
> strictly enforced one).
>
> --
> Ian Cordasco
>
>
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-- 
Davanum Srinivas :: https://twitter.com/dims

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