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What to expect from the upcoming OpenStack Forum

Answers to your most common questions about the upcoming Forum at the Summit Berlin.

October 25, 2018
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Forums were the public square or marketplace of ancient Roman cities where judicial activity and public business took place. At the OpenStack Forum participants bring feedback, pain points and proposals following August’s Rocky release.  The aim is to ensure the broadest coverage of topics that will allow for multiple facets of the community getting together to discuss key areas within our community/projects.

Quick recap: OpenStack Summits are events where all the open infrastructure community gets together. There are keynotes, traditional presentations, training opportunities… The Forum is the part of the event where collaborative discussions happen. It focuses on strategic discussions, taking advantage of having a large cross-section of the OpenStack community present to have fruitful user-dev brainstorming sessions.

The next Forum will be at the Berlin Summit. Forum sessions will include:

  • Strategic, whole-of-community discussions, to think about the big picture, including beyond just one release cycle and new technologies
  • Cross-team sessions, to coordinate work and decisions between various project teams, work groups or SIGs
  • Project-specific feedback, where developers can ask users specific questions about their experience, users can provide feedback from the last release and cross-community collaboration on the priorities and ‘blue sky’ ideas for the next release.

You can check out the schedule here.

How the Forum is organized

The Forum is for the entire community to come together, to create a neutral space for all contributors. Like in past Summits, we use Etherpads to brainstorm topics, starting a couple of months before the summit. Each team (or group of teams working together) should list topics, communicate with other teams and choose their most compelling ideas for formal submission. Afterward, a team of representatives from the User Committee, the Technical Committee, Foundation staff, and one from each of the new OSF projects will take the list of sessions proposed by the community and fill out the schedule.

This is not a classic conference track with speakers and presentations. OSF community members (participants in development teams, operators, working groups, SIGs, and other interested individuals) discuss the topics they want to cover and get alignment on and we welcome your participation.  The Forum is an opportunity to help shape the development of future project releases.

Practically, the Forum is looking to be three parallel rooms laid out in parliament style, running for the majority of the summit.

There’s more in detail on the wiki.

Can my Working Group or project still meet at the Summit?

There will be sessions for Working Group meetings and BoF’s during all three days of the event, but this will be separate to the Forum. A foundation staff member reaches out to Working Group leads about desired space several before the Summit to schedule these sessions. If you would like to request space for your Working Group to meet, please contact [email protected].

I’m a developer, should I come?

We’d love as many developers as possible to come, but realize that some of you may have had to prioritize attending the PTG over the Summit. To achieve the objectives of the Forum as the big community interaction point, we need to have some significant representation from each project (PTLs, strategically-focused team members…). In order to keep travel costs under control for those attending both events, people physically attending the PTG receive a discount code to attend the Summit.

I’m a cloud operator, should I come?

Yes, this event will allow you to actively participate in the Open Design process. If possible, be sure to bring specific feedback from the latest release including bug links and your ideas for the next release.

I’m an application developer, should I come?

Yes, you are the reason we build the software and run the clouds. We need to know what you are trying to do and how your experience has been.

I’m a product manager, should I come?

Yes, we need your expertise to help shepherd discussions into tangible outcomes. Do note though, that OpenStack is not traditionally product-managed – we recommend you contact the Product Working Group before diving in deep!

Why are we doing this again?

  • To create the best possible software we can
  • To facilitate direct engagement between users and contributors
  • To help us be more strategic and thoughtful with planning (even beyond just one cycle!

 

Check out the Wiki or the schedule for details.

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