[Pacemaker] Announce: pcs / pcs-gui (Pacemaker/Corosync Configuration System)

[Lars Marowsky-Bree]

On 2012-06-05T09:43:09, Andrew Beekhof <andrew at beekhof.net> wrote:

Hi Andrew,

> > (When we're talking about Pacemaker (versus the crm), it is obvious that
> > that wasn't really a technology-driven move.)
> With the implication being that technology-driven moves are bad?
> How do you explain HAWK then? Shouldn't Tim have written a patch to
> py-gui instead?

The python-UI was an entirely different architecture to hawk. That's not
even apples to oranges, that's apples to a horse ;-) We *did* worry a
bit between hawk and looking at drbd-mc though, but even there (the
reasonably heavy-weight java client and the implications of it) the
architecture was significantly different.

Obviously, not all technology-driven moves are bad.

And I think the elephant in the room that we're all too polite to
mention here is that technology probably only accounts for about half of
the rationale.

> > Of course. Still, people will ask "which one should I choose", and we
> > need to be able to answer that.
> 
> The same way the Linux community has answers for:
> - sh/bash/tsch/zsh/dash...
> - gnome/kde/enlightnment/twm/fvwm...
> - fedora/opensuse/debian/ubuntu/leaf...
> - mysql/postgres/oracle/sybase
> - ext2,3,4/reiserfs/btrfs...
> - GFS2/OCFS2
> - dm_replicator/drbd
> - selinux/apparmor
> - iscsi clients
> - chat/irc/email clients
> - programming languages
> - editors
> - pacemaker GUIs
> 
> Linux is hardly a bastion of "there can be only one", so I find the
> level of doom people are expressing over a new cli to be disingenuous.

Don't get me started. There's quite a few examples in your list where
I'd be more than willing to ask "Why, pray tell, WHY" too. ;-) (Just
look at the cost we pay for something as trivial as slightly
incompatible Unix shells in the resource agents ...) There is always a
cost to choice, which is why it is a very valid question to ask if we
need the choice, and what we gain from it.

> Every argument made so far applies equally to HAWK and the Linbit GUI,
> yet there was no outcry when they were announced.

No, like I said above, that did suck - but the architecture truly is
different and drbd-mc just wasn't the right answer for customers who
wanted a HTML-only frontend. Besides, this is not an outcry. An outcry
is revoking people's mailing list privileges and posting angry blogs.
;-)

> It seems duplication is only bad to those that aren't responsible for it.

No, it is actually only bad for people who are responsible for
maintaining it.

And there's always a balance to be struck between unification &
convergence and exploring new paths. I'm not even saying "Don't go
there!" (because I am perfectly well aware I can't stop anyone), I'm
still mostly working out how that new path differs from the existing
one.

> Presumably you'll continue to advise SLES customers to use whatever
> you ship there.
> Doesn't seem too complex to me.

You do know it isn't that simple. "But distro X does Y, we want that on
your's too!" "Why are you doing Z?" And of course there's the question
of *what to ship*, for which someone, somewhere needs to have a remotely
informed opinion ;-)


Regards,
    Lars

-- 
Architect Storage/HA
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg)
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." -- Oscar Wilde