I have a side project in mind called CloudSand that I'm hoping to work on next year. The purpose of CloudSand is to provide common OS distros. So I'm anxiously waiting for this to come through :)
Something mentioned below that I would like to comment on: > [Jie] I am thinking to turning this on by default in ACS so that it is > visible immediately to CloudStack admins after installation. This is really a > way to make sure admins actually know about the new feature. There will be a > global configuration that admin can turn this feature off entirely. Can we have MarketPlace feature enabled on per project/customer basis - and not a global on/off type of switch? -----Original Message----- From: Jie Feng [mailto:jie.f...@citrix.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 12:46 PM To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: RE: [DISCUSS] CloudStack Marketplace Update Any inputs from others in the community? I like to reach some consensus on where to host the Apache listing repository in the next couple of weeks (since if we go with option 1, we need to give vendors enough time to put listings in source code prior to code freeze end of Jan). Jie -----Original Message----- From: Jie Feng Sent: Monday, December 10, 2012 4:14 PM To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: RE: CloudStack Marketplace Update Thanks Joe for the inputs! My comments inline. Chiradeep, thanks for the names! You are sure more creative than I am :) -----Original Message----- From: Joe Brockmeier [mailto:j...@zonker.net] Sent: Monday, December 10, 2012 3:51 PM To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: CloudStack Marketplace Update On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 03:24:18PM -0800, Jie Feng wrote: > It seems the image got stripped out by the Apache mail server. So I > included text info instead. Sorry about the spam. Probably just as well, some of us aren't using gui mail clients. ;-) > We had some early discussions in the mailing list regarding where to > host the Apache CloudStack listing repository and what to name this > feature. I included various options in the wiki (also see below), my > proposal for v1.0, and feedbacks I got from the Collaboration > Conference attendees. Comments, suggestions, flames? The feature itself - having a way to list a "marketplace" of templates/images for CloudStack users - sounds great. Companies like Citrix that ship a CloudStack distribution like CloudPlatform can populate a marketplace with templates, etc. from their partners. Providers like Contegix could populate the marketplace with their own offerings, etc. I'm not so sure about turning this feature on by default in ACS, though. [Jie] I am thinking to turning this on by default in ACS so that it is visible immediately to CloudStack admins after installation. This is really a way to make sure admins actually know about the new feature. There will be a global configuration that admin can turn this feature off entirely. > ========================================= > Here are the Design Choices: > > Where to host Apache Listing Repository? > > There have been some discussions on the cloudstack-dev mailing list on > where to host the Apache Listing Repository a few months ago. Given > that additional resources will be required to create a separate > governance body for a community managed listing repository, hosting > the Apache Listing Repository within CloudStack source code tree for > v1.0 seems to be a more viable option. The following is an analysis of > pros and cons for each option. This was presented at the CloudStack > Collaboration Conference and feedback was that as long as the actual > vendor software is not open source, and vendor can continue to update > the image template off release cycle, option 1 (CloudStack source code tree) > is fine. Separate governance body? I'm guessing what you mean here is a subset of volunteers from the committers/PPMC, etc.? [Jie] Yes. > * Option 1. CloudStack Source Code Tree (part of CloudStack > distribution) -- proposed for v1.0 > > o Pros: Governed by the same Apache project process; listings are > tested and verified to work with each CloudStack version (just like > vendor plugins) I think we have our hands full testing Apache CloudStack. Trying to test third party templates that would run on CloudStack seems like a *lot* of work. [Jie] I think we only need to test the listing, but not the actual templates. Otherwise, I agree it will be too much work. How do we test vendor plugins today? > o Cons: Vendors need to sign Apache contributor license agreement > (CLA); vendors cannot make changes to listing files off CloudStack > release cycle; new vendors and products have to wait for the next > CloudStack release cycle to be added I'm not sure about whether vendors would need to sign the CLA, but I'm not entirely clear on *what* it is that we'd be providing, exactly. [Jie] Can you clarify more for the CLA? I thought that anyone contributing anything to CloudStack source code tree needs to sign CLA? Is that true? If we package the listing repository in the source code tree and ship with CloudStack distribution, I assume vendors who puts the listings there needs to sign the CLA. If I understand correctly, we'd be providing a pointer of some kind to images, etc. hosted elsewhere? Obviously, we would not be able to host the images themselves given licensing/space issues. [Jie] Yes, for templates/ISOs, vendor will provide a pointer to image hosted elsewhere. We will not host it in Apache. > * Option 2. A separate listing repository hosted by the Apache > CloudStack community Hosted where? How? What format is the listing going to be in? What kind of technical requirements are we talking about? [Jie] That's my question also. Where can we host it if not in the source code tree? Apache CloudStack website? See wiki for format: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/CloudStack+Marketplace+Proposal > o Pros: Vendors do not need to sign Apache CLA; vendors can add/update > listing any time with changes propagated to each Cloudstack instance > with Marketplace enabled > > o Cons: What about governance? If no governance, the listing might > not work or can even contain virus. To provide governance requires us > to create a whole new process and need people This would also be true of Option 1, yes? [Jie] For option 1, we will test the listing itself as part of the Apache CloudStack governance process we use for the source code, so that we don't need to create a separate governance process. We can only go as far as testing the listing does not include virus. We cannot test the templates/ISOs (too time consuming). Should this be similar to vendor plugins? In the case of vendor plugins, we can only test the plugins. Vendors' products can evolve outside of CloudStack and if they put some virus in, there is no way we can govern that. > * No Apache listing repository This has my vote so far. If I understand the feature correctly, I would say the marketplace should be an optional feature that can be turned on at compile time - perhaps with a configuration that lets you point to one (or more) managed marketplaces provided by third parties. That way if a company or group wants to manage a marketplace, they can publish the URL it can be found at and users can flip the switch to get that. [Jie] You are correct that there is configuration item that lets you point to one (or more) marketplace repositories. My proposal is to turn the feature on by default as explained above. > What should be the name of this new component? Marketplace seems fine to me, seems descriptive enough and doesn't overlap with other names currently. -- Joe Brockmeier http://dissociatedpress.net/ Twitter: @jzb
