| I feel like the KEP was never examined "adversarially". And that isn't the right word, because nobody wants to create conflict where there is none. Perhaps "skeptically" is a better word, but even that implies some level of external objection. To pick on some almost unfairly cherry-picked examples: - the KEP called out "don't want to run scripts from github" as a design goal _for_ kustomize, when kustomize itself clearly ran arbitrary scripts in well advertised situations. Nobody during the (lengthy and open) KEP review stage raised this. (Since fixed by removing this kustomize feature) - the various "to plugin or not to plugin" discussions are highly subjective (and always will be) and dance around the elephant in the room: "We think the plugin mechanism is great" obviously doesn't marry with "nobody wants to use it". - the scope and approach of kustomize vs other "less stylistically opinionated" alternatives was never (openly?) considered afaics. For example, perhaps we could _just_ have a stack of json/s-m-p patches that get applied, or a generic mechanism for applying arbitrary "post-process" transformations. The kustomize KEP didn't really consider "not using kustomize" as an alternative, which is understandable from a kustomize pov (we must presume the authors like their proposal!), but not from a sig-cli and overall process pov. Afaics, the kustomize folks did everything right through this, as did the rest of sig-sli, and the above is only apparent in hindsight. The reality is that the sig contributor group is small, and necessarily can only consider proposals that actually exist. The KEP process is entirely human-based, with all the biases and fallibility that comes from that. I don't have any useful suggestions for how to institutionalise scepticism that won't also bring far worse chilling effects. I note the KEP template already includes "drawbacks" and "alternatives" sections, but it relies on cultural expectations to ensure these are used effectively. TL;DR: I actually think this "kerfuffle" is an example of the larger process working _well_. A decision graduated to a larger audience, was questioned, and rolled back to be reexamined in greater detail. We must _expect_ to have to iterate on some decisions sometimes, and that's ok, normal and healthy. |