last week, I attended the OpenStack PTG (Project Teams Gathering) in Atlanta.
Even more in depth: PTG info at https://www.openstack.org/blog/2016/05/faq-evolving-the-openstack-design-summit/
TL;DR:
1) This is a hugely productive event, with project teams getting an enormous amount of work done without the distractions that are usually present at a conference.
2) I remain very concerned about how this event will effect the
character of OpenStack Summit – removing the bulk of the engineers from that event, and making it more product/marketing/sales focused. Time will tell
At the gathering, I did 23 interviews with Red Hat engineers about what they did in the Ocata release. You can see some of those interview on the RDO YouTube Channel. I’m not done editing them all yet, but they will appear over the coming weeks as part of various blog posts, as well as all of them appearing in that YouTube playlist.
I am constantly blown away by the passion, expertise, and
professionalism of the folks I get to work with. Wow.
Anyways, more about the PTG.
I was (and, really, still am) very skeptical about this new format.
Splitting OpenStack Summit into four events rather than two has already had significant impact on travel budgets, not just at Red Hat, but also at other companies involved in OpenStack. A lot of companies, for example, didn’t send anyone to FOSDEM, and we had a hard time staffing the OpenStack table there. Usually people work one shift at the table, but this year several of us worked 4 and 5 shifts to cover all the slots.
I am concerned that splitting the engineers off into their own event
will significantly change the character of OpenStack Summit from being a community-centric, tech-centric event, to more of a sales and marketing event, light on technical depth.
But this event, for what was intended, has already been amazing.
Everyone is commenting on how much is getting done, how much less distracted the team meetings are, how much better the teams are gelling than they have at any previous event. This is a working event, and people are here to get work done. They are meeting all day, every day, working on plans and blueprints, and fighting out agreements on things that would take weeks in email, and everyone seems VERY pleased with outcomes.
So, perhaps the trade off will be worth it. Time will tell. Regardless, Erin Disney and her team put on an amazing event that fulfilled, and exceeded, its goals.
On Wednesday night, everyone that has ever contributed a patch to RDO was invited for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at the SideBar, and while there the RDO Ocata release announcement was sent out.
We had about 50 people in attendance, who ate and drank up all of my budget in about 2 hours.