Kubernetes is a complex system organized into around 35 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that focus on specific areas or projects. These SIGs help manage the project's massive scale and ensure cross-dependency communication. The Kubernetes organization on GitHub includes 52 repositories, covering a wide range of components and tools.
SIGs in Kubernetes can be vertical, horizontal, or project-based. Vertical SIGs focus on specific technical areas like networking or nodes. Horizontal SIGs cover broader areas that span multiple SIGs, such as architecture. Project-based SIGs, like Contributor Experience or SIG Release, focus on specific initiatives to improve the project's processes and outputs.
A SIG chair runs the SIG, managing both technical projects and day-to-day operations. This includes setting and publishing milestones, roadmaps, and goals, ensuring meeting notes and videos are available, and facilitating communication within the community. The chair is nominated and vetted through the Kubernetes Development Mailing List (KDEV).
The first step for a new contributor is to check the contributor guide, which is located in the Kubernetes/community repo under the contributors/guide folder. This guide provides a beginner checklist, including how to sign the CLA, understand the GitHub labeling system, and set up a development environment.
New contributors can find their entry point by joining the Slack channel, participating in SIG meetings, and looking for labeled issues like 'help wanted' or 'good first issue.' They can also start with documentation or testing, which are great ways to learn the project's processes and contribute meaningfully.
Automation plays a crucial role in Kubernetes by streamlining the code review and merging process. The Test Infrastructure Repository, managed by SIG Testing, includes build tools and bots that handle code reviews, labeling, and merging PRs. This ensures that contributions are efficiently reviewed and integrated, even with a large number of contributors.
The weekly Kubernetes community meeting, held every Thursday at 10:00 AM Pacific time, provides a 10,000-foot view of the project. It covers the current release, features, and updates from various SIGs. The meeting is a great place for both contributors and users to stay informed about the project's progress and upcoming changes.
The code freeze period, typically the last four weeks of a quarter, is dedicated to stabilizing the upcoming Kubernetes release. During this time, only critical bug fixes are accepted, and no new features are merged. This ensures that the release is stable and well-tested before it is officially released.
Kubernetes offers several mentoring programs, including a monthly series called 'Meet Our Contributors,' which features live streams with contributors who answer questions from the community. These programs aim to help new contributors get involved and provide support through various mentoring initiatives.
Users can temporarily increase the power of their Cloud Shell VM by enabling Boost Mode. This changes the machine type from a default G1 small to an N1 standard 1 VM instance. Enabling Boost Mode will restart the Cloud Shell session and the boost will last for 24 hours.
Paris Pittman) and Garrett Rodrigues) join Mark) and Melanie) to discuss the Contributor Experience on Kubernetes, and how people can get involved with Kubernetes! Paris Pittman Co-Chair of Contributor Experience Special Interest Group for Kubernetes. Bay Area Kubernetes Meetup Co-Organizer
Paris) is a Developer Relations Program Manager on the Google Cloud Open Source Strategy team focusing on Kubernetes Community. She has 13 years of professional experience in attracting, retaining, growing, and incentivizing engineering talent for organizations and open source projects. She has also been organizing communities in one form or another for over 20 years, and at one point ran enough hackathons and meetups to subsist solely on the free pizza leftovers. Garrett Rodrigues Technical Lead of the Contributor Experience SIG for Kubernetes.
Garrett) is a Technical Program Manager at Google, and he joined the Kubernetes and GKE Team at Google in June 2016. As a lead of ContribX, he has focused on scaling the Kubernetes project in a sustainable way. Garrett developed a lot of the tooling and automation to support OSS code review, issue triage, and data collection about the project. In addition to his work on Contributor Experience, Garrett is currently involved with the app-def working group to get a new declarative application management tool released. Cool things of the week
Interview
) Question of the week If I need to temporarily increases the power of a Cloud Shell), how do I do that?
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