[Gluster-devel] Maintainers 2.0 Proposal

Fri Mar 17 19:50:31 UTC 2017

I don't want to take the discussions in another direction, but want clarity
on few things:

1. Does maintainers means they are only reviewing/ merging patches?
2. Should maintainers be responsible for answering ML / IRC questions
(well, they should focus more on documentation IMO).
3. Who's responsibility is it to keep the gluster.org webpage? I personally
feel the responsibility should be well defined.
4. Can a component have more than 1 owner ? 1 maintainers etc?

Some of these questions should be clearly answered in document IMO.

Regards,
Amar

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 11:55 PM, Amye Scavarda <amye at redhat.com> wrote:

> Posting in line, but it may be pretty hard to follow.
> Apologies if I miss something.
>
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 11:06 AM, Niels de Vos <ndevos at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 10:12:18PM -0400, Vijay Bellur wrote:
>> > Hi All,
>> >
>> > We have been working on a proposal [1] to make the lifecycle management
>> of
>> > Gluster maintainers more structured. We intend to make the proposal
>> > effective around 3.11 (May 2016).
>> >
>> > Please review the proposal and let us know your feedback. If you need
>> > clarity on any existing aspect or feel the need for something
>> additional in
>> > the proposal, please feel free to let us know.
>>
>> I'll just include the proposal here and add inline comments. I'm not
>> sure if this is the best way, or if you would like anyone edit the
>> document directly...
>>
>> > Thanks!
>> > Amye & Vijay
>> >
>> > [1]  https://hackmd.io/s/SkwiZd4qe
>>
>>
>>
>> > # Revised Maintainers for 3.11
>> >
>> > AI from Community Meeting, March 1:
>> > amye to work on revised maintainers draft with vbellur to get out for
>> > next maintainer's meeting. We'll approve it 'formally' there, see how it
>> > works for 3.11.
>>
>> The next maintainers meeting happens when many maintainers are at VAULT.
>> I would not expect a large attendance at that time. Also, Amye sent an
>> email with a different target date?
>>
>
> Feedback target date of 30 days, that's what I was indicating. This was
> reviewed in the maintainers' meeting on March 8 and we're now expanding out
> to the larger group.
>
>>
>> > ## Goals:
>> > * Refine how we declare component owners in Gluster
>> > * Create a deeper sense of ownership throughout the open source project
>> > * Welcome more contibutors at a project impacting level
>>
>> It would be good to make a distinction between the Gluster Community and
>> the GlusterFS Project. "Gluster" refers in my understanding to all the
>> projects of the Gluster Community. This document looks most aimed at the
>> GlusterFS project, with some Gluster Community references.
>
>
>
> Is this distinction relevant? We're talking about how we define a
> maintainer for contributing to the Gluster community overall. As I work
> through this, I see your confusion. I don't think that we'd be able to make
> this call for 'all related projects', but for committing back into Gluster
> proper, yes.
>
>
>>
> > ## Definition of Owners + Peers
>> > * Commit access to the project is not dependent on being a maintainer. A
>> >   maintainer is a leadership role within the project to help drive the
>> >   project forward.
>>
>> "the project", is that the glusterfs git repository, or any repository
>> that we maintain? How would we see this for projects that contain
>> Gluster modules like NFS-Ganesha and Samba? Or are those not considered
>> as "our" components?
>
>
> I think initially, we'd want to limit this to just the Gluster project.
> Too much expansion and we'll have too much change too quickly.
>
>
>>
> > * Owner - Subject matter expert, help design large feature changes and
>> >   decide overall goal of the component. Reviews patches, approves
>> >   changes. Responsible for recruiting assisting peers. Owner of
>> >   component. (Principle Software Engineer - unconnected to actual role
>> >   in Red Hat organization)
>>
>> I would say a "subject matter expert" can give a +2 code-review in
>> Gerrit, and the "owner" of the component would honour that opinion. I
>> fail to see what "Principle Software Engineer" has to do with this if it
>> is not connected to a role at Red Hat (hmm, I need to talk to my boss?).
>>
>>
> I've gotten feedback that we should revisit the 'Principal' vs 'Senior'
> framing - apologies. It was not the intention to make it Red Hat centric in
> this way, but it was shorthand for responsibility areas. I'm happy to
> revisit.
>
>
>> > * Peer - assists with design, reviews. Growing into subject matter
>> >   expert, but not required to be engaged in the overall design of the
>> >   component. Able to work largely without day-to-day supervision.
>> >   (Senior Software Engineer -  unconnected to actual role in Red Hat
>> >   organization)
>>
>> A "peer" would do code-review +1 on the proposed design and/or change.
>> That means it still needs a "subject matter expert" to really approve
>> the change. Hopefully all the straight forward points have been checked
>> by peers for changes (coding style, basic error checking and resource
>> allocation/freeing, test-case, ...).
>>
>> Correct. This person could also be your backup for making sure the
> feature moves forward!
>
>
>> > ## Additional changes:
>> > * Carving out new components needs Project Lead + Community lead
>> >   approval  - we can expand this as needed.
>>
>> Yes, please expand. Are new projects (like the recent gluster-block) new
>> components? Who is/are Project Lead and Community Lead, are these the
>> same people for all projects in the Gluster Community?
>>
>
> Expand meaning - as we adopt this for Gluster project. Not including 'all
> the various connected projects'. Too far for this particular rollout.
>
>>
>> > * Project Lead and Community Lead should watch out for people owning
>> >   lots of components with no peers. This may lead to burn out. Identify
>> >   these owners and assist them in getting new peers.
>>
>> This means that for the GlusterFS project the MAINTAINERS file needs to
>> be maintained very well. How do you plan to keep track of all the other
>> related projects?
>
>
> The maintainers file does need to be regularly reviewed and updated. Think
> of it like the 'phone tree' for the project.
>
>> > * Owners can pick peers for their components with just an announcement.
>>
>> I do not think "peers" should need approval. Is not everyone allowed to
>> review designs and patches? Sending an announcement for new contributors
>> that just reviewed their first patch does not sound scalable. New
>> "peers" can review proposals for any component. I must be missing
>> something here, a better explanation would be most welcome.
>>
>> We'll need to know who we'd go to for a backup. A peer would be someone
> you'd trust to be able to maintain a feature in your absence. Better
> clarification?
>
> > ## Transition
>> > * Current maintainers get to choose between ownership/peer of components
>> >   they're listed as owners.
>>
>> Well, yes, hopefully everyone being an "owner" or "peer" does so
>> voluntary. Obviously certain companies have an interest in getting their
>> employees to volunteer to do the work (and hopefully the tasks are part
>> of their official job).
>
>
>> > * Have people focus on maximum of two components as an owner. If they
>> >   have more, they should be strongly suggested to invite new people as
>> >   peers to be trained as future owners. If current owners consider
>> >   somebody as being ready to take over as owner of a component that they
>> >   are managing, please announce new owners with appropriate
>> >   justification on maintainers ML.
>>
>> Why two components? The majority of people listed in the glusterfs
>> MAINTAINERS file already have more. And that is only for the glusterfs
>> project, many will  have additional projects they are responsible for.
>>
>> We started with two to see how many people will be affected by this -
> just limiting to Gluster.
>
>
>> > * It's okay to drop a component if they are not able to find
>> >   time/energy. Owners are requested to minimize disruption to the
>> >   project by helping with transitions and announcing their intentions.
>>
>> Yes, of course :)
>>
>> > * Project Lead and Community Lead are responsible for maintaining the
>> >   health of the community. This includes balancing work for component
>> >   owners or choosing which components aren't included in the cycle in a
>> >   way that minimizes disruption to the project.
>>
>> What "cycle" is meant here?
>>
>
> Release cycle.
>
>
>>
>> > References:
>> > https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/modu
>> le-ownership/
>> > https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
>>
>> Maybe also see how QEMU and the Linux kernel handle this? I'm definitely
>> more familiar with those projects than Mozilla or Drupal.
>
>
> Want to add in more detail from those? These were the initial references
> from where I'd started, happy to see if there are features from other
> communities.
>
>>
>>
> Thanks!
>> Niels
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Amye Scavarda | amye at redhat.com | Gluster Community Lead
>
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>

-- 
Amar Tumballi (amarts)
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