"key users" reference shortlist

[ffromani]

The project would benefit from a shortlist (like 4-5-6 or so items) of key project we consider "reference users". When we evaluate possilby breaking changes or new APIs, we can then evaluate the impact on these projects as proxy for the rest of the users, and engage with these projects to get early feedback about the new APIs or feature we design.

Because of the experimental nature of this initiative, the feedback received should be not gating, except of course for obviuosly breaking changes or obvious bugs which we want to avoid anyway; for more nuanced topics, this feedback from the live users can help us find the better way forward.

When possible, we should try to do pre-merge checks using the reference project CI systems; if impossible, unpractical or else, we can seek for feedback from the key project maintainers. Again, to avoid infinite waiting time (different projects do have different velocities, and that's unavoidable), we can timebox the feedback window.

The criteria to identify the key project shortlist should be

1. reach: we want to get feedback from the projects with most users
2. diversity: we want to cover as much API surface as possible

We can use indexing tools like https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/jaypipes/ghw?tab=importedby to identify the candidate projects.
My initial draft would be

1. github.com/k8snetworkplumbingwg (all the projects? TBD) - impact
2. sigs.k8s.io/node-feature-discovery - impact
3. ... TBD

(extra, maintained by @ffromani best-effort, )

1. https://github.com/k8stopologyawareschedwg/resource-topology-exporter
2. https://github.com/openshift/cluster-node-tuning-operator

[jaypipes]

• https://github.com/kairos-io/ (7 repos)
• https://github.com/elastic/elastic-agent
• https://github.com/intel/ (4 repos)
• https://github.com/ironcore-dev/metalnet/
• https://github.com/portainer/agent
• https://github.com/tinkerbell/tinkerbell/

That last one is interesting... looks like they are basically wrapping ghw in their own thing inside their agent code. I know Jacob Weinstock (core maintainer of tinkerbell) and can reach out to see if they are interested in being part of this little list :) )