TSC Meeting (07 Apr 2020): v3.2 Release Preparation progress & Blockers & Community

[arm4b]

This was second @StackStorm/tsc meeting. Previous meeting recap could be found at #1.

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

Main effort that we discussed is preparing the StackStorm v3.2 release, work towards removing all the blockers, start the release testing and kick the automation to get the 3.2 out.

Proposal: TSC Metting Coordinator Rotation

The idea and proposal is to set up rotation for the monthly StackStorm TSC meeting Manager/Coordinator who will be conducting the talk and lead the ST2 TSC meeting: prepare the agenda, questions, review progress based on previous meetings, align with the roadmap, distribute team members involvement, put the TSC meeting report together, etc.
See Rotation for the Monthly TSC Meeting Manager/Coordinator #4 discussion fore more details.

v3.2 Release Preparation

Based on #1 discussions and feedback @StackStorm/maintainers made some good collective progress and improvements.

• @punkrokk finalized work for the new EL8 platform support
• @blag almost finished all the EL8 https://github.com/stackstorm/st2ci and https://github.com/stackstorm/st2cd workflows and rules required for st2cicd automation
• As ST2 & EWC release automation is tightly coupled together, @m4dcoder worked on EWC packages for EL8 to make sure it's not a blocker for the upcoming release
• @blag worked on removing U14 platform from all the release automation and CI/CD (Drop Ubuntu14 support st2#4747)
• Some tasks are still TBD from First StackStorm TSC meeting Minutes (Mar 3 2020): Plans for st2 v3.2 release & the Linux Foundation Networking #1
• There are Github issues and PRs left that were assigned to the v3.2 milestone: https://github.com/StackStorm/st2/milestone/37 and team was working really hard to decrease that list so there are no blockers left.

We're really getting closer to start the testing and release process soon.

Situation with the $ and platforms StackStorm relies on

We had a few 🔥🔥🔥 with the $ and platforms StackStorm as a project relies on and agreed that it's a good time for optimization and cut the costs.

• @punkrokk was able to acquire 50% FOSS discount from Discourse for the current https://forum.stackstorm.com/ account
• @armab cleaned-up @StackStorm Github org from the private repositories and switched to FOSS plan
• @punkrokk was able to apply for AWS FOSS account with $$$ credits we could use in the future (current st2cicd heavily relies on AWS, ExtremeNeworks is sponsoring that right now)
• Per First StackStorm TSC meeting Minutes (Mar 3 2020): Plans for st2 v3.2 release & the Linux Foundation Networking #1 because the Linux Foundation can't support StackStorm in $, there were informal talks with different companies to help StackStorm OpenSource (Infrastructure, AWS, PackageCloud, Github, G suite, Forum $, Blog, etc day-to-day infra bills) that showed some positive signs.

We'll keep optimizing StackStorm costs in future and discover opportunities.

Encourage Community Involvement and Support

There is a good amount of organizations from the Fortune 100 relying on StackStorm in their day-to-day operations and business. Some of them are mentioned in https://github.com/StackStorm/st2/blob/master/ADOPTERS.md, but it's really small tip of the iceberg.

With StackStorm joining the Linux Foundation and Open Governance we agreed there is a need to talk with our Community/Users who rely on ST2 and encourage them to take part in future development, maintenance and contributions.
Some of us already talked to different groups and we should continue this effort. This is important deal for the StackStorm future as a project.

Another message is Marketing efforts. Twitter, Blog posts, guest Blog posts, etc all that increases ST2 use and popularity as DevOps/Automation tool. It might be hard to motivate the orgs and get the engineering involved in st2 development straight away. But at least motivating them to be vocal about ST2 use as a first step: ask to tell success & battle stories and everyone can win from that.
One of the examples: https://medium.com/@VZMediaPlatform/using-stackstorm-to-automate-support-for-20-000-servers-4b47ae3a4e98