On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:15 AM, Gray, Mark D <mark.d.g...@intel.com> wrote: >> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 9:12 AM, Gray, Mark D <mark.d.g...@intel.com> >> wrote: >> > Processes (not really dealt with by the charter but worth some discussion): >> > * I think the following would improve transparency, I don't know if this >> should be in the charter, but I think it would be good to address: >> > a. A more open roadmap to avoid duplication, encourage collaboration >> and avoid disappointment when a lot of work has been put into something >> that doesn't get a lot of support from the community. I really liked the way >> OVN started, Ben circulated some development documents which gave >> everyone a good idea of what was going on before code was written and an >> opportunity to help out or comment on. You could take this to the extreme >> and do something like blueprints in Openstack (but this is probably a too >> heavyweight?) >> > b: When the TSC members meet, it would be good that it was >> documented and shared so we can understand the decision making process >> for the technical direction. >> > >> > Voting: >> > * The charter states that "While it is the goal of OVS to operate as a >> consensus based community, if any TSC decision requires a vote to move >> forward, the Committers shall vote on a one vote per Committer basis." >> > Due to b) above, the distribution of the TSC inevitably weighted towards >> the Nicira team which effectively gives veto to one group. I believe this is >> something we should as a community attempt to change. This is obviously >> not going to happen immediately but if we put the right processes in place, >> it >> should make it easier. One example may be to limit the number of votes >> allocated to one group? Maybe there are other suggestions? >> > >> > * There doesn't seem to be a process to propose a committer unless you >> are a committer. Maybe this could change? >> >> I think one thing that might be useful for context is that the >> committers as a group (soon to be TSC) have never discussed or voted >> on anything other than administrative matters - meaning things like >> electing new committers and now this transition to the Linux >> Foundation. There aren't any meetings where roadmaps are planned or >> otherwise decide on anything related to technical direction - all of >> that would take place on the public mailing list. In that light, >> anyone can send out proposals for roadmaps, etc. to the mailing list >> in the same way that anyone can submit patches. (And there actually >> isn't much advantage to being a committer - a committer better not be >> applying patches that haven't been reviewed or aren't supported by the >> community.) > > Actually, I didn’t think that you guys did discuss other matters. However, I > think > that this is a gap. I think it would be beneficial to have a better > understanding of > what contributors are working on or are thinking of working on as it > may help encourage collaboration early in the design phase of features and > get early feedback. > > Again, this is more related to process than the charter but I would > encourage the TSC to look at these processes. Also, on the subject of process > a bug tracking database of some description may be useful. I'm sure the > Linux Foundation could provide the infrastructure for this.
Just one quick note on the bug tracker - there actually is one already as part of the OVS project in github (https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs-issues/issues). It's mostly used by the Windows guys but I think that if more people started using it then more developers would start looking at it carefully. I agree that the development process is probably separate from what goes into the charter but it's absolutely important to discuss how we can improve things. The main thing is likely how to balance any processes with what I think is a pretty strong desire to keep things lightweight. I actually really would encourage people to send development plans/proposals to the mailing list in advance - I know that some open source communities only want to see code but my feeling is that people here are pretty open to giving comments on proposals. _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@openvswitch.org http://openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
