OpenStack continues to have a lot of potential, because of the great work of the many technical and governance teams do release after release. However, there continues to be the appearance of releases not meeting operators needs. The lack of technical strategy is partly to blame here. Defcore, Product, Stable Release, Cross-project, and the Technical Committee fill gaps, but without a strategy, it’s the orchestra without a conductor. Well played music stepping on each other.
As evidence for the case of the missing technical strategy, I draw your attention to the OpenStack mission objectives of massively scalable and easy to install as long overdue objectives. Without the focus a strategy provides, these very public objectives have not been well met or even well discussed. We have put much attention on Defcore and protecting the OpenStack brand. It is very important without a doubt. I submit that brand protection through interoperability is an important, second priority. Interoperability makes the ecosystem of companies stronger, but does not fix the underlying problem that Defcore and other teams keep running into.
The Product team is well placed to take a strong position on what the technical strategy should be. The board can act on it by focusing members and directing the foundation staff. It would be a good objective for the Product team mid-cycle.
We need to recognize we have fallen, so we can get back up again.
