On 02/05/2016 05:57 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Even before OpenStack had a name, our "Four Opens" principles were > created to define how we would operate as a community. The first open, > "Open Source", added the following precision: "We do not produce 'open > core' software". What does this mean in 2016 ? > > Back in 2010 when OpenStack was started, this was a key difference with > the other open source cloud platform (Eucalyptus) which was following an > Open Core strategy with a crippled community edition and an "enterprise > version". OpenStack was then the property of a single entity > (Rackspace), so giving strong signals that we would never follow such a > strategy was essential to form a real community. > > Fast-forward today, the open source project is driven by a non-profit > independent Foundation, which could not even do an "enterprise edition" > if it wanted to. However, member companies build "enterprise products" > on top of the Apache-licensed upstream project. And we have drivers that > expose functionality in proprietary components. So what does it mean to > "not do open core" in 2016 ? What is acceptable and what's not ? It is > time for us to refresh this.
Nice summary. I agree that some clarification would be helpful given to match our current reality. > My personal take on that is that we can draw a line in the sand for what > is acceptable as an official project in the upstream OpenStack open > source effort. It should have a fully-functional, production-grade open > source implementation. If you need proprietary software or a commercial > entity to fully use the functionality of a project or getting serious > about it, then it should not be accepted in OpenStack as an official > project. It can still live as a non-official project and even be hosted > under OpenStack infrastructure, but it should not be part of > "OpenStack". That is how I would interpret "no open core" in OpenStack > 2016. > > Of course, the devil is in the details, especially around what I mean by > "fully-functional" and "production-grade". Is it just an API/stability > thing, or does performance/scalability come into account ? There will > always be some subjectivity there, but I think it's a good place to start. > > Comments ? > I agree with your take. I'm not too worried about coming up with a strict definition for what a reasonable open source backend is. We can throw in some desirable traits like you have done, and then leave it to the TC to evaluate. I think that's a reasonable part of the TC's job. -- Russell Bryant __________________________________________________________________________ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
