All GSoC students are required to submit a RFC for the GSoC project that they
are interested in.
The RFC process is intended to provide a consistent and controlled path for
contributions to enter the Linkerd project, so that all stakeholders
can be confident about the project direction and maintainability of the codebase.
Before creating an RFC
A hastily-proposed RFC can hurt its chances of acceptance. Low quality
proposals, proposals for previously-rejected features, or those that don’t fit
into the near-term roadmap, may be quickly rejected, which can be demotivating
for the unprepared contributor. Laying some groundwork ahead of the RFC can
make the process smoother.
Although there is no single way to prepare for submitting an RFC, it is
generally a good idea to pursue feedback from the GSoC mentors beforehand, to
ascertain that the RFC may be desirable; having a consistent impact on the
project requires concerted effort toward consensus-building.
The most common preparations for writing and submitting an RFC include talking
the idea over on our
Linkerd Slack, #gsoc channel.
As a rule of thumb, receiving encouraging feedback from long-standing Linkerd
developers is a good indication that the RFC is worth pursuing.
What the process is
In short, to get a major feature added to Linkerd, one must first get the RFC
merged into this repository as a markdown file. At that point the RFC is
“active” and may be implemented with the goal of eventual inclusion into
Linkerd.
Copy templates/rfc.md to
rfc/year/project-name/your-github-handle.md.
Fill in the RFC, starting with Step 1 - Problem Statement. This is where
you demonstrate your understanding of the problem to be solved.
Submit a pull request. As a pull request the RFC will receive feedback from
the larger community, and the author should be prepared to revise it in
response.
Each pull request will be labeled with the most relevant reviewer, who will
lead its triage.
Build consensus and integrate feedback. RFCs that have broad support are much
more likely to make progress than those that don’t receive any comments. Feel
free to reach out to the RFC assignee in particular to get help identifying
stakeholders and obstacles.
The team will discuss the RFC pull request, as much as possible in the
comment thread of the pull request itself. Offline discussion will be
summarized on the pull request comment thread.
When all the feedback are integrated, update your pull request to complete
Step 2 - Design Proposal. Put care into the details: RFCs that do not
present convincing motivation, demonstrate lack of understanding of the
design’s impact, or are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend
to be poorly-received.
RFCs rarely go through this process unchanged, especially as alternatives and
drawbacks are shown. You can make edits, big and small, to the RFC to clarify or
change the design, but make changes as new commits to the pull request, and
leave a comment on the pull request explaining your changes. Specifically, do
not squash or rebase commits after they are visible on the pull request.
The RFC life-cycle
Once an RFC is tagged as “active” then author may implement it and submit the
feature as a series of pull requests to the
Linkerd2 repo. Being “active” is not
a rubber stamp, and in particular still does not mean the feature will
ultimately be merged; it does mean that in principle all the major stakeholders
have agreed to the feature and are amenable to merging it.
Modifications to “active” RFCs can be done in follow-up pull requests. We strive
to write each RFC in a manner that it will reflect the final design of the
feature; but the nature of the process means that we cannot expect every merged
RFC to actually reflect what the end result will be at the time of the next
major release.
In general, once accepted, RFCs should not be substantially changed. Only very
minor changes should be submitted as amendments. More substantial changes should
be new RFCs, with a note added to the original RFC. Exactly what counts as a
“very minor change” is up to the team to decide.
Implementing an RFC
Every accepted RFC has an associated issue tracking its implementation in the
Linkerd2 repository. The issue will be
assigned to the RFC author.
Help this is all too informal!
The process is intended to be as lightweight as reasonable for the present
circumstances. As usual, we are trying to let the process be driven by
consensus and community norms, not impose more structure than necessary.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted
for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be
licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.
Linkerd GSoC
Welcome to the Linkerd GSoC program!
This repository contains everything you need to know about the program.
Resources
#gsocchannel): https://linkerd.slack.comRequest For Comments (RFC)
All GSoC students are required to submit a RFC for the GSoC project that they are interested in.
The RFC process is intended to provide a consistent and controlled path for contributions to enter the Linkerd project, so that all stakeholders can be confident about the project direction and maintainability of the codebase.
Before creating an RFC
A hastily-proposed RFC can hurt its chances of acceptance. Low quality proposals, proposals for previously-rejected features, or those that don’t fit into the near-term roadmap, may be quickly rejected, which can be demotivating for the unprepared contributor. Laying some groundwork ahead of the RFC can make the process smoother.
Although there is no single way to prepare for submitting an RFC, it is generally a good idea to pursue feedback from the GSoC mentors beforehand, to ascertain that the RFC may be desirable; having a consistent impact on the project requires concerted effort toward consensus-building.
The most common preparations for writing and submitting an RFC include talking the idea over on our Linkerd Slack, #gsoc channel.
As a rule of thumb, receiving encouraging feedback from long-standing Linkerd developers is a good indication that the RFC is worth pursuing.
What the process is
In short, to get a major feature added to Linkerd, one must first get the RFC merged into this repository as a markdown file. At that point the RFC is “active” and may be implemented with the goal of eventual inclusion into Linkerd.
templates/rfc.mdtorfc/year/project-name/your-github-handle.md.Step 1- Problem Statement. This is where you demonstrate your understanding of the problem to be solved.Step 2- Design Proposal. Put care into the details: RFCs that do not present convincing motivation, demonstrate lack of understanding of the design’s impact, or are disingenuous about the drawbacks or alternatives tend to be poorly-received.RFCs rarely go through this process unchanged, especially as alternatives and drawbacks are shown. You can make edits, big and small, to the RFC to clarify or change the design, but make changes as new commits to the pull request, and leave a comment on the pull request explaining your changes. Specifically, do not squash or rebase commits after they are visible on the pull request.
The RFC life-cycle
Once an RFC is tagged as “active” then author may implement it and submit the feature as a series of pull requests to the Linkerd2 repo. Being “active” is not a rubber stamp, and in particular still does not mean the feature will ultimately be merged; it does mean that in principle all the major stakeholders have agreed to the feature and are amenable to merging it.
Modifications to “active” RFCs can be done in follow-up pull requests. We strive to write each RFC in a manner that it will reflect the final design of the feature; but the nature of the process means that we cannot expect every merged RFC to actually reflect what the end result will be at the time of the next major release.
In general, once accepted, RFCs should not be substantially changed. Only very minor changes should be submitted as amendments. More substantial changes should be new RFCs, with a note added to the original RFC. Exactly what counts as a “very minor change” is up to the team to decide.
Implementing an RFC
Every accepted RFC has an associated issue tracking its implementation in the Linkerd2 repository. The issue will be assigned to the RFC author.
Help this is all too informal!
The process is intended to be as lightweight as reasonable for the present circumstances. As usual, we are trying to let the process be driven by consensus and community norms, not impose more structure than necessary.
License
This repository is currently licensed under:
Contributions
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.