Revision as of 15:54, 22 October 2014

Introduction

With over 2000 developers from 80 different companies worldwide, OpenStack is one of the largest collaborative software-development projects. Because of its size, it is characterized by a huge diversity in social norms and technical conventions. These can significantly slow down the speed at which newcomers are successful at integrating their own roadmap into that of the OpenStack project.

We've designed a training program to help professional developers negotiate this hurdle. It shows them how to ensure their bug fix or feature is accepted in the OpenStack project in a minimum amount of time. The educational program requires students to work on real-life bug fixes or new features during two days of real-life classes and online mentoring, until the work is accepted by OpenStack. The live two-day class teaches them to navigate the intricacies of the project's technical tools and social interactions. In a followup session, the students benefit from individual online sessions to help them resolve any remaining problems they might have.

Objectives

• Faster integration of the companies product roadmap into the OpenStack release cycle
• Successfully contribute one real world patch to an OpenStack component
• Master the technical tools
• Understand the OpenStack contribution workflow and social norms

Target Audience

• Developers
• System administrators

Prerequisites

• Being able to read and write English at a technical level.
• If contributing code, being technically proficient enough to carry out simple bug fixes in the project.
• If contributing documentation, being able to produce documents in the project's chosen infrastructure.
• Having at least 8 hours a week to dedicate to the project, be it through programming or through interacting with the community.

Duration

• Face-to-face section: 2 days
• Online section: 10 one-hour individual mentoring sessions over a period of 4 to 10 weeks

Infrastructure

ready to use devstack VM for participants with network connectivity but troubles with their laptop

Course Outline

First day

Introduction

• A week before Day 1: choice of a contribution, via email, with each participant
• Day 1: How OpenStack is made
• Day 1: Learn and practice git, gerrit, IRC

• Day 2: The theory of contribution
• Day 2: Lego contribution simulation
• Day 2: Individual presentation of the contribution plan
• Day 2: Online mentoring

How OpenStack is made (3h including 1h30 exercises)

• Release cycle ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • Planning (Design, Discuss and Target)
  • Implementation (Milestone iterations)
  • Pre-release (Release Candidates dance)
    • Release candidate 1
    • Other release candidates
    • Release day
  • Exercise: based on the Icehouse release schedule find the URL of a document or a patch that belongs to each of the above steps.
• Relevant actors ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • commiters companies
  • commiters individuals
  • Your management
• Technical Committee ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • Decide what is an OpenStack Program
  • meetings
  • Exercise: read archived and briefly comment on keystone document
  • PTLs
  • APC
  • ATC
  • Exercise: each APC / ATC in the class add a URL to the etherpad proving it
• Program ecosystem ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • Incubated
  • Integrated
  • Core
  • Stackforge
  • Exercise: What kind of Program do you contribute to ?
• Design summits ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • propose sessions
  • attend or lead a session
  • Exercise: Add a session proposal regarding your contribution in an etherpad, review two proposals
• IRC meetings ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • modified meetbot
  • #info - Add an info item to the minutes. People should liberally use this for important things they say, so that they can be logged in the minutes.
  • #action - Document an action item in the minutes. Include any nicknames in the line, and the item will be assigned to them. (nicknames are case-sensitive)
  • #help - Add a "Call for Help" to the minutes. Use this command when you need to recruit someone to do a task. (Counter-intuitively, this doesn't provide help on the bot)
  • Exercise: lunch menu online meeting

Workflow of an OpenStack contribution and tools (3h including 2h exercises)

• devstack ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • Ubuntu or Fedora
  • git clone https://github.com/openstack-dev/devstack.git
  • minimal configuration
  • cd devstack; ./stack.sh
  • Exercise: get the code for the targeted contribution
• HOW to contribute URL ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • puppet stackforge
  • documentation
  • training guides
  • Excercise: Apply for individual membership and sign the CLA
• launchpad ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • blueprints
  • bugs
    • Status, Importance, Assigned To, Milestone, Tags
    • reporting a bug
    • confirming and prioritizing
    • debugging
    • bugfixing
  • Exercise: review other launchpad bugs and improve yours
• gerrit workflow ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • account setup
  • git review installation
  • ssh setup
  • project setup
  • gerrit workflow
  • running unit tests
  • review dependencies
  • Exercise: push a wip or draft and invite reviewers
• Branching model ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • development
  • stable
  • Exercise: checkout the latest stable branch
• reviewing ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
• writing a commit message ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • reference to a bug or a blueprint
  • amending a commit message
  • Exercise: review each other messages on the draft
• jenkins ( slides.odp slides.pdf )
  • Exercise: add an error and match it to the jenkins message

Second day

The Contribution Process (3 hours)

( [1] [2] )

• Take the pulse of the project.
• Figure out who's behind it.
• Determine the project's social groups.
• Assess your approach.
• Engage immediately.
• Play with your network.
• Perform the smaller tasks.
• Choose a question.
• Familiarize yourself with the code of conduct.
• Understand the conventions.
• Explain what you do.
• Prepare the backport.
• Learn what's local and what's upstream.
• Learn what distinguishes good work flow from bad work flow.
• Quantify the delta.
• Speed up the acceptance.
• Determine the time frame.
• Maximize karma.
• Work in parallel.
• Archive and collect.

Agile for Contributors (15 min)

( [3] [4] )

• Apply agile
• Who is the customer?
• Company & Upstream product owner
• Sprint review presentation to Upstream

Contribution Simulation (1 hour)

The students make a virtual contribution simulation using Lego bricks as props, with the goal of expanding a Lego town, built by upstream. They are divided into teams; the teacher is by turns the product owner in the company and the upstream.

Contribution Planning (2 hours)

( [5] [6] )

• The students use template slides to prepare a 5-minute presentation of their planned contribution.
• A sample presentation is given by the teacher, as an example.
• Each student group prepares a presentation describing:
  • the contribution they plan to work on during the online sessions,
  • how they will engage with the Upstream,
  • how it contributes to the company's agenda
  • and whom they will be working with.
• Each student group presents its slides to the class