OpenStack - A leveler playing field

I just proposed a review to openstack/governance repo [0] that aims to have everything across OpenStack be plugin based for all cross project interaction, or allow all projects access to the same internal APIs and I wanted to give a bit of background on my motivation, and how it came about.

Coming from a smaller project, I can see issues for new projects, smaller projects, and projects that may not be seen as "important".

As a smaller project trying to fit into cross project initiatives, (and yes, make sure our software looks at least OK in the Project Navigator) the process can be difficult.

A lot of projects / repositories have plugin interfaces, but also have project integrations in tree, that do not follow the plugin interface. This makes it difficult to see what a plugin can, and should do.

When we moved to the big tent, we wanted as a community to move to a flatter model, removing the old integrated status.

Unfortunately we still have areas when some projects are more equal - there is a lingering set of projects who were integrated at the point in time that we moved, and have preferential status.

A lot of the effects are hard to see, and are not insurmountable, but do cause projects to re-invent the wheel.

For example, quotas - there is no way for a project that is not nova, neutron, cinder to hook into the standard CLI, or UI for setting quotas. They can be done as either extra commands (openstack dns quota set --foo bar) or as custom panels, but not the way other quotas get set.

Tempest plugins are another example. Approximately 30 of the 36 current plugins are using resources that are not supposed to be used, and are an unstable interface. Projects in tree in tempest are at a much better position, as any change to the internal API will have to be fixed before the gate merges, but other out of tree plugins are in a place where they can be broken at any point.

None of this is meant to single out projects, or teams. A lot of the projects that are in this situation have inordinate amounts of work placed on them by the big-tent, and I can emphasize with why things are this way. These were the examples that currently stick out in my mind, and I think we have come to a point where we need to make a change as a community.

By moving to a "plugins for all" model, these issues are reduced. It undoubtedly will cause more, but it is closer to our goal of Recognizing all our community is part of OpenStack, and differentiate projects by tags.

This won't be a change that happens tomorrow, next week, or even next cycle, but think as a goal, we should start moving in this direction as soon as we can, and start building momentum.