[HEALTH]: Trickster

[mrbobbytables]

Project name

Trickster

Concern

Trickster has not seen any real activity for some time

There has been no activity for the past 90 days:

and decreased activity over time

Additional details can be seen on Trickster's LFX insights dashboard

Prior engagement

No response

Additional Information

No response

[dims]

from: https://trickster.devstats.cncf.io/d/74/contributions-chart?orgId=1&from=now-3y&to=now

[dims]

cc @jranson @LimitlessEarth @SuperQ @kapunahelewong @jacksontj @juliusv @sylr @crandles @jnichols-git

[dims]

Notes:

• Commit Activity: No commits in the last 6 months, with the last commit 184 days ago.
• Contributors: Only 1 contributor in the last 6 months, down from 1 in the previous 3 months.
• Issues/PRs: Minimal activity, with no issues or PRs closed in the last 3 months.
• Releases: Last release was on 06/02/2020, indicating no recent updates.
• Health: Inactive. The project shows no recent activity and appears to be dormant.

[jranson]

@mrbobbytables & @dims thanks for checking in.

The Trickster project is still active and we respond to user feedback regularly. At the same time, the maintainers of the project are volunteers who are not monetarily sponsored and do not get compensated in any way for our volunteerism. So at times, our day jobs (which do pay the bills) and life happenings take precedence over being able to allocate time to the project in ways that will satisfy the CNCF's analytics. For me personally (as the lead maintainer), I have been battling health issues for the past 5 years, while currently working on an intense 6-month contract that ends on 2/28/25. Therefore, the project has not seen any commit activity recently, as evidenced by your analytics. I expect to resume work on Trickster in the coming weeks when my current assignment concludes.

But I must say this: If the CNCF has questions or concerns about the project, you are welcome to simply email the maintainers to check in. The CNCF never did that. Instead, as a first resort, you chose to publicly shame a group of volunteers who have contributed thousands and thousands of lines of software code to the Foundation over the last 7 years - including to CNCF projects other than Trickster. That approach, which should be the last resort, is callous and only serves to deflate the morale and motivation of the team. So I would encourage you to find more constructive ways to engage with volunteers going forward.

Lastly, there are users who you tagged on this issue who have not been project maintainers in some time. We have tried multiple times (via email and PRs) to correct the maintainers list that the CNCF has on file. Please stop tagging and contacting former maintainers about Trickster.

[dims]

thanks for the update @jranson

fyi, this is the same process we follow for all projects ( https://github.com/cncf/toc/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20%20label%3Ahealth%20 ). Very sorry to hear about your health issues. good to know that work will resume soon.

Glad to know that the last PR you linked to is the correct one. thanks for confirming.

[jranson]

@dims Thank you for replying and explaining the process. I hope the CNCF is open to amending it based on my feedback, because it currently and unnecessarily places volunteer maintainers in publicly embarrassing situations whenever the Foundation feels they are not active enough. That does not accomplish anything towards improving project health, and is actually detrimental to the project.

I should not have to publicly declare on a github issue why life events have precluded me from contributing to a volunteer project in a while. That is simply unfair and wrong. But because of the current process, I felt that I had no choice, when it is really no one else's business and ultimately compromises my privacy.

Further, I encourage you to go back and read through all of the [HEALTH] issues you created/linked above. Ask yourself in reading them, did you ever mention that you appreciate the all of the work on the project? Did you ever say that the CNCF is here to help? Did you ever ask if we needed anything from the Foundation to help the project along?

The answer to those questions is No. These issues and their comments are effectively a dossier of evidence (including digging through and citing project issues that are, in some cases, years old) as to why you think a project is inactive. In some instances, you guys even pile on, like in this comment, where Bob effectively says, "Aha, found something else!" These issues read almost like exhibits that a prosecutor seeking an indictment would present to a grand jury. In all of these issues, your and Bob's commentary is objectively insensitive.

On the level, this is simply not how you treat volunteers, especially ones who have contributed thousands of hours towards the Foundation's interests.

My recommendations:

• For Health check-ins, first contact the maintainers privately for information. A simple nudge generally works wonders without requiring a public flogging, and allows maintainers to privately explain what might be going on, without sharing unnecessarily on the open internet.
  • Go to GH Issues if you are not getting any cooperation
• When raising concerns with volunteers, always show appreciation, supportiveness and empathy, starting with the first sentence. Do not allow those concerns to convey as if we are on trial.

CC: @TheFoxAtWork

[TheFoxAtWork]

tl;dr:

@jranson To bring this issue back to the topic of Trickster’s health, would you and the other maintainers be amenable to joining a private TOC call so we can discuss Trickster and the current circumstances of the project more in depth?

Clarifications and understanding

In order for the Foundation to effectively manage its projects and the services in use by projects, the TOC regularly evaluates project health and activity. We do this in an open and transparent manner, aligned with our principles and values, capturing indicators of inactivity or declining health of projects so we can engage in an informed discussion, guided and informed by community members who may have insights above and beyond those which are readily available.

These are never to shame a project, they are to bring projects back to health or to archive in the absence of adherence to CNCF expectations of projects. We are an oversight body, we are here to support projects on their path to graduation in a manner that suits their development practices under alignment with our criteria and expectations. The manner in which individuals choose to perceive this function is entirely a framing of their own volition. In plain words - if you wish to see this process as punitive, you will keep that mentality in tact with your responses inquires, if you chose to see it for what it is - a query into the health so we may help guide back to a positive state or to archive if it is well and truly not meeting criteria or expectations (like activity) - the choice is entirely yours.

We understand that while many of our projects do have the privilege of maintainers and contributors employed by committed organizations to the success of open source and allocate time to do so accordingly, this is not universally true and we expect to see variances in project activity as maintainers and contributors have or find time to continue development of these amazing projects. The challenge we experience in assessing activity or abandonment is that each project, by our own principles, is afforded their own open governance, their own release cadence, and their own roadmap, introducing differing indicators of health and activity project to project. This is why we open health of issues, to understand what is transpiring so we may be informed as the corresponding documentation and indicators do not necessarily align with the project’s own declarations for governance, activity, or release (in some cases these are absent).

Nothing in our health of and archiving process requires project maintainers to divulge personal or confidential information. If project maintainers are experiencing a circumstance for which they do not wish to disclose publicly, the TOC has several mechanisms by which we may be contacted directly: through Staff (Bob, Jeefy, Jorge, etc.), through each of us directly, by email (mine is [email protected]), by linked in, slack in the #toc channel. We have had projects do this in the past.

We cannot alter what has already transpired but I would implore others who have concerns in responding publicly on these health of issues to comment that they will reach out to us directly or request we contact them directly - this is always an option. We have invited project maintainers to private TOC meetings in the past to understand more sensitive topics, protecting that information, and navigating through a path forward with the project to return to health that does not compromise what is shared privately.

Specifics regarding this issue’s discussion:

you are welcome to simply email the maintainers to check in

While this does seem relatively straightforward, we encounter other issues. Not all maintainers check emails, they often don’t know who is on the TOC and why they should respond to such a message. Every project has their own preferred communication and engagement style that we simply cannot accommodate across over 200 projects. We do our best but we understand and acknowledge that nothing works well or perfectly for everyone.

In other cases, it forces the project to engage with a single TOC member, creating a single point of failure in communication and understanding of what is going on in the project and for issues that take years to resolve, we lose that continuity and engagement as TOC members rotate out of the TOC. Further, this is not open, not transparent, and not readily trackable.

Ask yourself in reading them, did you ever mention that you appreciate the all of the work on the project? Did you ever say that the CNCF is here to help? Did you ever ask if we needed anything from the Foundation to help the project along?

Our health of and archive process does not include provisions for evaluating the level of effort applied by the maintainers to express appreciation. In truth, this is not unique to one project. Open Source is hard, its a lot of often thankless work, work that we, too, are familiar with. The appreciation however is best delivered from the adopters of the project and not from the oversight body, while it is beyond a doubt that the level of effort that goes into creating, develop, building, securing, releasing cloud native projects is substantial and truly appreciate, it is more heartfelt from adopters.

It should never be called into question whether open source peers appreciate the heroics we all do to keep our projects and community thriving.

Part of a project’s inclusion in CNCF affords them access to services that support projects. The TOC, our TAGs and this community has strived to ensure projects know we are here to help - it is part of our culture, you simply need to ask. This is why we have the health of issues, to create a mechanism to provide such help and support for those that are too swamped, too underwater, or too absent to ask without being prompted. In the course of this issue, we have not arrived at the point to engage in a discussion to understand if the project needs or desires help due to this current dialog which has chosen to focus not on the health and opportunity to help the project, rather to point out flaws, discrepancies, and scruples with how the TOC conducts health of and archive processes without first seeking to understand, learn, or arrive at an outcome that allows the project and the TOC to move forward together.

Regarding the recommendations you’ve provided that I have not yet addressed:

We can and will certainly do better in being explicit in the health of issues we file with projects to understand the current status and posture. As such, i have created a new issue to capture changes to the health of template to ensure we’re engaging with maintainers in a positive and uplifting that prevents further misunderstandings and misconception about why the TOC is inquiring publicly regarding a project’s health. #1550

[jranson]

@TheFoxAtWork thanks for following up. Having a sync up would be great, thank you for offering. We have some maintainers who are indisposed (Randles and Nichols), so if you can reach out to me via my e-mail address on file, we can work out a time next week for at least two of us to join you.

[TheFoxAtWork]

@jranson We have a public meeting next week but let me get with the TOC and see what we can make happen, it may just be a few of us.

@mrbobbytables would you help out with scheduling?

[mrbobbytables]

@jranson do you have a calendly or other meeting link? That will make scheduling a lot easier^^;;

[juliusv]

As someone who got CC-ed here but hasn't been involved with Trickster in ages, here's a short comment from the sidelines: I suspect that a lot of bad feelings could have been avoided if the title and wording of the initial generic issue text was a bit more elaborate and empathetic. Just tersely saying "There has been no activity" (in effect) without prior contact and without more context or link or follow-up on what that now implies can come across as a bit menacing or accusing.

How about starting off with something more like "Hey, hope you're doing well, we're your friends from the CNCF and we are just doing a regular check-in with our member projects to ensure that they are meeting certain health standards. We've noticed that there has been a period of inactivity in this project, we're here to help, please see these further guidelines on what this means, etc. etc." (with better wording :)).

[dims]

@juliusv thanks for the feedback, here's the suggested template for health check, please see if it helps enough - #1550

[TheFoxAtWork]

@jranson do you have calendly or other scheduling tool?

[jranson]

Hi @TheFoxAtWork, I do not have calendly or anything, but I am usually pretty free. I emailed @mrbobbytables yesterday so we can coordinate a time, hopefully that works for the TOC.