stable:follows-policy

Downstream users of OpenStack (users, but also packagers and lifecycle management tools) need to know whether they can count on a source of reliable bugfixes for a given component.

This tag indicates that a project team maintains stable branches for a given deliverable, and that those stable branches are maintained following the common Stable branch policy, as defined by the Stable branch maintenance team.

Application to current deliverables

• Barbican (Key Manager service): barbican

• Cinder (Block Storage service): cinder, cinderlib, os-brick, python-brick-cinderclient-ext, python-cinderclient

• Designate (DNS service): designate, designate-dashboard, python-designateclient

• Glance (Image service): glance, glance-store, python-glanceclient

• Heat (Orchestration service): heat, python-heatclient

• Horizon (Dashboard): horizon

• Ironic (Bare Metal service): ironic, ironic-inspector, ironic-lib, ironic-python-agent, python-ironic-inspector-client, python-ironicclient

• Keystone (Identity service): keystone, keystoneauth, keystonemiddleware, pycadf, python-keystoneclient

• Manila (Shared File Systems service): manila

• Murano (Application Catalog service): murano, murano-agent, murano-dashboard, python-muranoclient

• Neutron (Networking service): neutron-fwaas, neutron, neutron-dynamic-routing, neutron-lib, neutron-vpnaas

• Nova (Compute service): nova, python-novaclient

• Octavia (Load-balancer service): octavia, octavia-dashboard, python-octaviaclient, octavia-lib

• Oslo (Common libraries): automaton, castellan, debtcollector, etcd3gw, futurist, microversion-parse, oslo.cache, oslo.concurrency, oslo.config, oslo.context, oslo.db, oslo.i18n, oslo.log, oslo.messaging, oslo.middleware, oslo.policy, oslo.privsep, oslo.reports, oslo.rootwrap, oslo.serialization, oslo.service, oslo.upgradecheck, oslo.utils, oslo.versionedobjects, oslo.vmware, oslotest, osprofiler, pbr, stevedore, taskflow, tooz

• Sahara (Data Processing service): python-saharaclient, sahara, sahara-dashboard, sahara-extra, sahara-image-elements, sahara-plugin-ambari, sahara-plugin-cdh, sahara-plugin-mapr, sahara-plugin-spark, sahara-plugin-storm, sahara-plugin-vanilla

• Swift (Object Storage service): python-swiftclient, swift

• Zaqar (Message service): zaqar

Rationale

All OpenStack project teams can create stable branches, with the name of their choice. However, some of those branches do not follow the Stable branch policy: some approve backports that modify the behavior of the software, some backport new features, some do not actively backport significant bugfixes, some don’t monitor proposed backports, or monitor the CI system on their stable branches…

That creates confusion for packagers and deployers of our software, which no longer know what to expect from a stable branch. Having stable branches is no longer a guarantee of an up-to-date source of safe fixes.

To replace it, this tag is granted by the stable branch maintenance team only to deliverables which have stable branches maintained following the common Stable branch policy. This lets downstream users easily determine which projects adhere to the common rules, and expose what the common rules are to a wider audience. As a side-effect, it encourages more project teams to follow the policy.

Requirements

The tag can only be applied to software components of an OpenStack cloud (openstack, openstack-operations on the map) and associated libraries (openstack-libs). It is not meant be applied to SDKs (openstack-user) or deployment tools (openstack-lifecyclemanagement).

Deliverables must follow the Stable branch policy in all currently active stable branches.

Tag application process

Proposals to add or remove this tag must be reviewed by the Stable Branch Maintenance team prior to final approval by the Technical Committee.

Deprecation

The stable:follows-policy tag may be removed from deliverables at any time, when the Stable Branch Maintenance team considers that the deliverable repeatedly violated the Stable branch policy.

The stable:follows-policy tag is applicable to all currently active stable branches. The removing the tag will also be applicable for all currently active stable branches, meaning that projects that have removed the tag no longer needs to follow Stable branch policy for any of the active stable branches.

Once the tag is removed, it can be re-obtained as per the Re-obtaining the Tag process.

Re-obtaining the Tag

Re-obtaining the stable:follows-policy tag back is always possible and can be proposed with the agreement of Stable Branch Maintenance team. Because this tag is applicable per repository not per branch, any project not having this tag can backports the unstable changes to any of the currently active stable branches. Re-obtaining the tag will follow the same process as obtaining tag from fresh, meaning that all active stable branches follow Stable branch policy. If the branch that the tag was removed is still in active stable branches it means project is not following the Stable branch policy in all active stable branches.

As summary, the project can be applicable to re-obtain the tag once the branch that the tag was removed from is EOL.

The tag re-obtain application process is the same as described in Tag application process.