Attention Cloud WG nominees

[Matthew Miller]

This is a message for people who have self-nominated for the Fedora
Cloud Product Working Group (FCPWG?). As the FESCo coordinator for the
group, it's my job to narrow down the list to the initial 9 voting
members. I was going to send this individually, but then I thought, eh,
let's do it in public. If you want to send me other thoughts off-line
too, go for it. And if you're not in the list of nominees I'd still
value your input into some of the concepts.

I've been the defacto maintainer of the Fedora cloud image kickstart
for the past year or so (I have commit access, and I use it!), and I
think that's gotten into fairly decent shape. This WG will be about
going beyond decent and into something that's actually both very useful
and well-used. I have some ideas for what that'd look like, but I'd
like to hear yours too. And, I'm interested in hearing where you'd like
to contribute in specific. I didn't see anyone mention QA on the
nomination list, for example, and we'll need to find someone to take
ownership of that.

Our actual deliverables are listed here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora.next/boardproposal#Product_Working_Groups
and they start with:

  * Governance plan and documents
  * A product definition -- target audience and so on
  * A list of changes from existing procedures
  * Actually doing things

You may notice that "actually doing things" is kind of far down the
list, and there's some degree of.... procedural overhead. If you really
hate that kind of thing, speak up now, because maybe this isn't the
best use of your time. Although the voting membership is going to be
limited, and focused on these things, we actually also need a broader,
involved community, so not being on the WG doesn't mean you can't be
involved in a meaningful way.

I posted a few weeks ago about possible directions for the cloud
product. I am, by the way, pretty sure that we are talking about a
cloud _guest_, and that being a base for cloud infrastructure systems
like OpenStack or Eucalyptus is in the realm of the Server product (or
possibly new, secondary products focused specifically on those
use-cases).

I've also heard a few comments suggesting that the cloud guest should
basically just be the server product in image form, with cloud-init.
This is a model where cloud computing is basically seen as providing
"servers in the sky"; I think there's a place for that, but again, I
don't think it's what we should be aiming at. The point of having this
product as something different is so we can actually better address the
different needs.

What that actually looks like is to be determined. The current target
is basically "as minimal as possible, but not so minimal that we break
stuff or make people's life harder". In the absence of better idea
about what we're doing or what we're providing this image _for_, that's
a fine, generic base. We have the opportunity now to write the better
story, though... so, what are your ideas?



-- 
Matthew Miller  ☁☁☁  Fedora Cloud Architect  ☁☁☁  <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>