[ANNOUNCE] OWNERS Clean up

[Bob Killen]

Hey there K-dev,

This is a long post. There is a TL;DR at the bottom but please take the time to read it.

Kubernetes has evolved and grown significantly over the past 5 years. There is a significant amount of OWNER file sprawl (450+ in k/k alone), and within that, there is some level of turn over. People move on from the project. This doesn’t happen immediately. It’s a gradual thing with contributors drifting away slowly. What work they can take on decreases, and eventually they become inactive...but that doesn't stop them from being assigned to issues and/or pull requests..

This isn't a long term solution, but early next week we're going to prune reviewers and approvers that have had no GitHub activity across all Kubernetes Orgs from January 1st, 2018 to September 1st, 2019. This would remove 31 owners from 55 different OWNERS files[1]. It will NOT be a top-down forced action; current approvers will be given an opportunity to vet the changes and make suggestions.

Cleaning up inactive owners and members is going to be a big step forward, but it is only part of the problem. Many of the active owners themselves are overburdened. Many folks within the contributor community have taken on more load than they can sustain.

We strive to help new contributors climb the ladder[2]; we also need to know when to step away or step down from it.

- Take a look at the Gubernator PR dashboard[3]. If there are an excessive amount of things listed there and you don’t have the cycles; try and reassign them.

- If you're going to be away for a short period or preoccupied for a bit, set your GitHub status[4] to ‘Busy’. Blunderbuss[5] will not assign you as a reviewer[6] to new incoming PRs automatically. 

- Do an owner audit. Check what owners files you’re in with https://go.k8s.io/owners/${GITHUB_USER} and make sure it's up to date. 

- Interested in what parts of the code base your SIG may own? Your SIG’s README in the community repo should contain a list. You can also omit ${GITHUB_USER} from https://go.k8s.io/owners/ and search using the labels configured within the OWNERS file. e.g. “sig/contributor-experience”.

- If you’re an approver, consider becoming an emeritus_approver[7] -- still be listed in the OWNERS file as a contact if you're needed, but not directly assigned work. Should you become active again, moving back to an active owner is one PR away.

These things are ultimately suggestions, but stepping back, elevating others, and helping maintain a healthy pool of owners is crucial for the long term health of the project. It will also make it easier to find which SIGs need more help reviewing if the OWNERs files reflect who is actively reviewing.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Either here, in #sig-contribex in slack, or you can pm me directly @mrbobbytables.

Thank you,

- Bob

TL;DR

• Inactive owners will be pruned from the kubernetes/kubernetes repo starting next week.

• Set your GH status to ‘busy’ to stop being assigned work by blunderbuss[4]

• Use these resources to update what your an owner of:

• Gubernator PR dashboard[3]

• https://go.k8s.io/owners/${GITHUB_USER}

• Add yourself as an emeritus_approver[7]

[1] https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/76269

[2] https://git.k8s.io/community/community-membership.md#community-membership

[3] https://gubernator.k8s.io/pr

[4] https://help.github.com/en/articles/personalizing-your-profile#setting-a-status

[5] https://git.k8s.io/test-infra/prow/plugins/approve/approvers/README.md#blunderbuss-and-reviewers

[6] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/kubernetes-dev/bXHK8l3D6l0/ZLi-ZiWTAgAJ

[7] https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide/owners.md#emeritus

[Joe Beda]

Thanks for taking this on Bob.

 

It is important that we have clarity of ownership so that we can make sure that folks don’t get confused. It will also help to highlight the areas where we are understaffed so that we can bring focus there.

 

FWIW, it is likely that I’m going to be removed from some/all OWNERS files as my attention lately has been away from writing code (unfortunately). I’m happy to be listed as emeritus_approver as I can always look to move back as I have time to re-engage.

 

Joe

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