openstack-poc team mailing list archive

[Joe Heck <Joe.Heck@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jun 22, 2012, at 11:53 AM, Justin Santa Barbara wrote:
> In my mind, the PTL is responsible for moving their individual OpenStack sub-project forward.  The technical committee is responsible for OpenStack as a whole, and making sure that the individual projects are advancing OpenStack in the right direction.
> 
> In other words, I see the PTLs' responsibilities as more day-to-day operations (code reviews, blueprints etc), whereas the Committee should be concerned with the technical vision and strategy (e.g. what overall features should be part of the N+2 release and do we need e.g. to add new projects to get there?)
> 
> To use a startup analogy, I see the PTLs as "Director of Engineering" and the technical committee as "CTO".  Just as different people fill those roles in a company, I probably wouldn't vote the same way.  Obviously some people would be good in both roles, but we shouldn't mandate that the two be linked.  In particular, we shouldn't exclude someone from being a PTL because they wouldn't be a good "CTO".

That sounds great, but the reality is that all of these projects today are evolving actively with each other, and very little is done in isolation. The assumption that anything other than basic project management could be done effectively in isolation is a misnomer. 

The PTLs today as a group are doing the duties you are ascribing to the technical committee. Where we are lacking in that operation is more getting more of a voice of people using the product in that same group. This is exactly why I think we should expand on the PTL set of people with additional elected positions from the community to fill out that need.

Creating a separate group will simple introduce confusion and frustration when these groups diverge. Having a separate group asserting what others *should* do is fine in a company, but a recipe for disaster in an open source organization. As you're very aware, If you want something done, come with the code. 

Making a means of having separate groups in this respect is pre-seeding that division as soon as one of the PTLs *is not* elected to the technical committee. Why on earth would we want to set ourselves up for failure in that way?

-joe