First StackStorm TSC meeting Minutes (Mar 3 2020): Plans for st2 v3.2 release & the Linux Foundation Networking

[arm4b]

A quick overview about the first @StackStorm/tsc online meeting that took place 3 Mar 2020 after forming the initial project Maintainers via OWNERS and GOVERNANCE.

Present @armab @nmaludy @blag @mickmcgrath13 @m4dcoder @punkrokk @dzimine @Kami @LindsayHill
Absent @bigmstone

v3.2 Release Plans

We agreed to start the release process around mid - end of the March.

Due to transition period, StackStorm wasn't released for several months. There is a lot of rust in release automation and we expect that things will break. Before, with a dedicated full-time team release usually took about 1 week. With the new structure and considering that release wasn't conducted for a while we expect the release process will take around 2 weeks.

• StackStorm Release is automated by StackStorm itself (dog-fooding) via st2ci (https://github.com/stackstorm/st2ci) and st2cd (https://github.com/stackstorm/st2cd) orquesta workflows. Internal infrastructure and release processes needs to be shared with the new @StackStorm/maintainers. This is part of the still ongoing transition process.
• @blag will help with integrating new EL8 workflows into the current st2cicd process.
• @blag @armab will help exposing st2cicd notifications from private Slack to public (StackStorm-Community).
• @armab will work on opensourcing parts of the internal WIKI and discussions that's related to release automation and more.
• @m4dcoder will handle EWC part before the release.
• @armab will be conducting the release (release manager) while @punkrokk will be assisting with the release, learning the process and making notes for future improvements.
• @armab will need to integrate @punkrokk into internal infrastructure to be able to run and investigate the release workflow runs.
• @armab will need to fix some of the internal infrastructure bits, ran by Terraform and Ansible.
• @armab will open a new Discussion thread with StackStorm 3.2 major features and changes that needs to be tested and will instruct others how they can help.
• StackStorm master will be closed for new merges during the release/testing process.
• During the release @StackStorm/maintainers will help testing manually the new st2 development/beta functionality, report back their findings, bugs, inconsistencies or other UX issues. During this "exploratory testing" stage we usually find and fix many bugs before they appear in production version.
• To maintain the quality bar, depending on issues found before the release, ST2 might need more fixes to its core code and time to stabilize or not. It's up to team members to block the release if they think quality bar is not met or there are major blockers that needs to be addressed first.
• We'll involve @StackStorm/maintainers team where more help is needed during the release process to finally cut the new stackstorm v3.2.

StackStorm infra Expenses

StackStorm relies on different paid platforms to operate properly. It includes:

• CircleCI for building deb/rpm packages for all the platforms we support
• PackageCloud to host yum/deb repositories
• G Suite for emails
• main Website hosting for stackstorm.com
• AWS cloud and infrastructure to run daily, nightly, periodic, PR e2e tests that spins up a real VM instance to install + test st2 in each OS platform we support, ChatOps, release automation and community automation
• Packet.net for Vagrant/Virtualbox builds
• Discourse subscription for https://forum.stackstorm.com/
• certificates
• other expenses

While Extreme Networks is still supporting all this infrastructure, eventually we'll need to find an answer for StackStorm OSS part.

The Linux Foundation Networking

StackStorm has joined the Linux Foundation, established its maintainers, governance and started working under the new model. Next iteration is to move towards making StackStorm part of the Linux Foundation Networking (https://www.lfnetworking.org/) which provides more opportunities in supporting StackStorm for the growth. Networking is also relevant to many StackStorm use cases as well as its network-oriented background from Extreme Networks and Brocade roots. We invite everyone to work with orgs who use StackStorm and are existing members of the LFN (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/) to assist moving this process forward. StackStorm needs help here.

Next Meeting

We agreed that for the best consistency and balance StackStorm TSC meetings will take place with monthly periodicity. First Tuesday of the each month 09:30-10:30 AM California time.