On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Alex Huang <alex.hu...@citrix.com> wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: David Nalley [mailto:da...@gnsa.us] >> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 3:13 PM >> To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org >> Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Breaking CloudStack into subprojects >> >> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 5:42 PM, Alex Huang <alex.hu...@citrix.com> >> wrote: >> > After doing the merge over process one time, I realize something is wrong >> with CS structure. We should think about fixing this. >> > >> > The problems I found are >> > >> > - I know nothing about the UI but I'm responsible for it. >> > - Someone who is a committer can actually check into areas they know >> absolutely nothing about. >> > - As a release manager, I have no way of knowing whether someone doing >> a checkin is actually an expert in that part of the code because of the >> above. >> > >> > So this reminded me of a conversation I had with Amr Awadallah, >> Cloudera's CTO, when CS joined Apache incubation. I was picking his brains >> about how CS should work in Apache given his experience with Hadoop. His >> suggested that we break CS into multiple subprojects. We admit committers >> to the subprojects based on their experience with that subproject. >> > >> > I like to see what's the community's response to a structure like that. >> Through Murali's work, CloudStack has already been broken down into finer >> set of plugins. We can start with every jar is a sub project with committers >> assigned to them. It will take a little time to sort out but it will make >> going >> forward a lot easier. >> > >> > Please comment. >> > >> > --Alex >> >> >> My initial gut reaction is 'please no, not that' >> The idea of a modular, loosely coupled tools is nice, it plays well with my >> sensibilities, and giving that you are proposing it, and Sheng seconds it I >> have >> no doubt there is technical merit. >> >> That said I think it ignores some key issues: >> One of CloudStack's strengths is that it is a cohesive whole 'product' >> that works together. Splitting this out too much has me fearing the result. >> We aren't like unix utilities such as grep and bash that can coexist, there >> are >> plenty of interdependencies. >> >> As a project we trust our committers. The path to gaining commit privileges >> is >> already one that requires establishing trust and credibility, having multiple >> hoops of equal height within the same project baffles my mind. Yes anyone >> of those committers could commit changes that are deletirious. But in >> general we expect them not to meddle where they have no understanding. >> (For instance, you are incredibly unlikely to see me munging with some of >> the core internals of CloudStack - I know better and don't need to go tweak >> things, or at least if I do to do them in a feature branch) Plus, we have a >> revision control system, and commit messages, and commit then review is a >> pretty nice way to keep folks who care informed. >> >> I listen to the hadoop folks talk about the difficulty of setting up Hadoop >> MR >> + HDFS + Hive + Zookeeper + Pig, etc, etc, and the problems they have with >> version matching these different projects. Splitting CloudStack into n- >> number of subprojects means n-number of releases, and likely independent >> releases. >> >> Not to mention the additional overhead of splitting up into n-number of >> subprojects. And honestly this sounds like more of administrative concern >> than anything. I personally don't think the community is at the size yet >> where >> we can safely risk fragmentation. >> > > I don't think different subprojects necessarily mean different releases for > each project. It's more of means to put the experts with their expertise. > For example, before Hugo became a committer, Jessica Wang, a UI writer, was > committer for the Nicira code.
Huh? I see Murali as the committer for that code: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-cloudstack-commits/201207.mbox/%3C20120712001514.3D69313264%40tyr.zones.apache.org%3E That gets back to people reviewing what they know, I didn't review Hugo's patch as I know precious little about Nicira's NVP or the CloudStack end of the code. I don't think we have an abundance (or any) of that happening. If we do, we still have means of dealing with it. --David
