We will chat about this in the upcoming community sync (thursday 3 PM). So, please make sure to attend if you are interested.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 3:44 PM, Yan Xu <xuj...@apple.com> wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Yan Xu <xuj...@apple.com> wrote: > >> Thanks Alex for starting this! >> >> In addition to comments below, I think it'll be helpful to keep the >> existing versioning doc concise and user-friendly while having a dedicated >> doc for the "implementation details" where precise requirements and >> procedures go. Maybe some duplication/cross-referencing is needed but Mesos >> developers will find the latter much more helpful while the users/framework >> developer will find the former easy to read. >> >> e.g., a similar split: >> https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/docs/api.md >> https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/docs/de >> vel/api_changes.md (which has a lot of details on how the kubernetes >> community is thinking about similar issues, which we can learn from) >> >> Jiang Yan Xu >> >> On Wed, Oct 12, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Alex Rukletsov <a...@mesosphere.com> >> wrote: >> >>> Folks, >>> >>> There have been a bunch of online [1, 2] and offline discussions about >>> our >>> deprecation and versioning policy. I found that people—including >>> myself—read the versioning doc [3] differently; moreover some aspects are >>> not captured there. I would like to start a discussion around this topic >>> by >>> sharing my confusions and suggestions. This will hopefully help us stay >>> on >>> the same page and have similar expectations. The second goal is to >>> eliminate ambiguities from the versioning doc (thanks Vinod for >>> volunteering to update it). >>> >> >> +1 Let me know if there are things I can help with. >> >> >>> >>> 1. API vs. semantic changes. >>> Current versioning guide treat features (e.g. flags, metrics, endpoints) >>> and API differently: incompatible changes for the former are allowed >>> after >>> 6 month deprecation cycle, while for the latter they require bumping a >>> major version. I suggest we consolidate these policies. >>> >> >> I feel that the distinction is not API vs. semantic changes, Backwards >> compatible API guarantee should imply backwards compatible semantics (of >> the API). >> i.e., if a change in API doesn't cause the message to be dropped to the >> floor but leads to behavior change that causes problems in the system, it >> still breaks compatibility. >> >> IMO the distinction is more between: >> - Compatibility between components that are impossible/very unpleasant to >> upgrade in lockstep - high priority for compatibility guarantee. >> - Compatibility between components that are generally bundled (modules) >> or things that usually aren't built into automated tooling (e.g., the >> /state endpoint) - more relaxed for now but we should explicitly exclude >> them from the guarantee. >> >> >>> >>> We should also define and clearly explain what changes require bumping >>> the >>> major version. I have no strong opinion here and would love to hear what >>> people think. The original motivation for maintaining backwards >>> compatibility is to make sure vN schedulers can correctly work with vN >>> API >>> without being updated. But what about semantic changes that do not touch >>> the API? For example, what if we decide to send less task health updates >>> to >>> schedulers based on some health policy? It influences the flow of task >>> status updates, should such change be considered compatible? Taking it to >>> an extreme, we may not even be able to fix some bugs because someone may >>> already rely on this behaviour! >>> >> >> API changes should warrant a major version bump. Also the API is not just >> what the machine reads but all the documentation associated with it, right? >> It depends on what the documentation says; what the user _should_ expect. >> >> That said, I feel that these things are hard to be talked about in the >> abstract. Even with a guideline, we still need to make case-by-case >> decisions. (e.g., has the documentation precisely defined this precise >> behavior? If not, is it reasonable for the users to expect some behavior >> because it's common sense? How bad is it if some behavior just changes a >> tiny bit?) Therefore we need to make sure the process for API changes are >> more rigorously defined. >> >> Whether something is a bug depends on whether the API does what it says >> it'll do. The line may sometimes be blurry but in general I don't feel it's >> a problem. If someone is relying on the behavior that is a bug, we should >> still help them fix it but the bug shouldn't count as "our guarantee". >> >> >>> >>> Another tightly related thing we should explicitly call out is >>> upgradability and rollback capabilities inside a major release. >>> Committing >>> to this may significantly limit what we can change within a major >>> release; >>> on the other side it will give users more time and a better experience >>> about using and maintaining Mesos clusters. >>> >> >> According to the versioning doc upgradability depends on whether you >> depend on deprecated/removed features. >> >> That paragraph should be explained more precisely: >> - "deprecated" means your system won't break but warnings are shown >> (Maybe we should use some standard deprecation warning keywords so the >> operator can monitor the log for such warnings! >> - "removed": means it may break. >> >> If you deprecate a flag/env that interface with operator tooling in the >> next minor release, the operator basically has 6 months from the next minor >> release to change the her tooling. I feel this is pretty acceptable. >> If you deprecate a flag/env variable that interface with the framework >> (executor) in the next minor release, I feel it may not be enough and it >> probably warrants a major version bump. So perhaps the API shouldn't be >> just the protos. >> >> >>> 2. Versioned vs. unversioned protobufs. >>> Currently we have v1 and unnamed protobufs, which simultaneously mean v0, >>> v2, and internal. I am sometimes confused about what is the right way to >>> update or introduce a field or message there, do people feel the same? >>> How >>> about splitting the unnamed version into explicit v0, v2, and internal? >>> >> >> As haosdent mentioned, we have captured this in MESOS-6268. The benefit >> is clear but I guess the people will be more motivated when we find some v2 >> feature can't be made compatible with the v0 API. (Anand's point >> in MESOS-6016). On the other hand, if we cut v0 API access before that >> happens (is v0 API obsolete and should be removed 6 months after 1.0?) then >> we don't need to worry about v0 and can use unversioned protos as >> "internal"? >> >> >>> Food for thought. It would be great if we can only maintain "diffs" to >>> the >>> internal protobufs in the code, instead of duplicating them altogether. >>> >>> 3. API and feature labelling. >>> I suggest to introduce explicit labels for API and features, to ensure >>> users have the right assumptions about the their lifetime while engineers >>> have the ability to change a wip feature in an non-compatible way. I >>> propose the following: >>> API: stable, non-stable, pure (not used by Mesos components) >>> Feature: experimental, normal. >>> >> >> +1 on formalizing the terminologies. >> >> Historically the distinction is not clear for the following: >> >> 1. The API has no compatibility guarantee at all. >> 2. The feature provided by this API is experimental >> > > To add to this point: because 2) logically doesn't apply to the "pure (not > used by Mesos components)" fields in the API, it could be more confusing > and thus require more precise definition. > > >> >> IMO It's OK that we say that we don't distinguish the two (the API has no >> compatibility guarantee until the feature is fully released) but we have to >> make it clear. >> If we don't make such distinction, ALL API additions should be marked as >> unstable first and be changed stable later (as a formal process). >> >> >>> >>> Looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions. >>> AlexR >>> >>> [1] https://www.mail-archive.com/user@mesos.apache.org/msg08025.html >>> [2] https://www.mail-archive.com/dev@mesos.apache.org/msg36621.html >>> [3] >>> https://github.com/apache/mesos/blob/b2beef37f6f85a8c75e9681 >>> 36caa7a1f292ba20e/docs/versioning.md >>> >> >> >