Melissa Wood
Oct 30, 2026 - Nov 3, 2026
2
Decisions
0
Active Todos
3
Patterns
Categories
Decisions (2)
Customer-specific fixes on 10.2 LTS only if every LTS customer wants them - otherwise it is a multi-year branch and breaks bug-for-bug compatibility with RH
Ryan raised a customer-requested fix for 10.2 LTS that Melissa was advocating. Peter gave the test: if every 10.2 LTS customer wants the fix, do it; if not, it is another branch to maintain for years and very likely not worth it, and doing it means CIQ is no longer bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat - we need to be clear about who we are. He framed it as thinking out loud and said he would support whatever Ryan and the other party agreed.
Rocky Linux Pro rename - one disruption, customers told first, structural RLC names stay until there is a value or a problem
Bjorn owned the RLC Pro to Rocky Linux Pro rename and Greg had no objection to Justin convergence doc. Peter set how it executes: Justin 8.10/9.2 convergence changes and the rename ship together so customers absorb one disruption; sales contacts every potentially affected customer first and only then does engineering flip its side (Justin could not action it that morning); structural RLC names (repos, Depot paths, CPEs, bootc and container names) stay as they are; and there is no hard company-wide switch - the public name can slide over a week or two. Jamie Brooks drives the project.
Related Patterns (3)
Reclassify to Route - Decide Who Owns It, Then Give a Criterion Not a Verdict
When a question arrives at Peter framed in one domain, he often does not answer it in that framing. He reclassifies it into the domain that actually governs the outcome, which relocates ownership to whoever owns that lane, and then hands down a decision criterion rather than a verdict. The reclassification IS the decision - it determines who decides. He does this rather than adjudicating on the merits himself, even when he was explicitly cc-ed and even when a direct report challenges him on the substance.
Constrain the Mechanism, Not the Access
When AI or automation raises a governance concern, Peter does not restrict who or what may reach the data. He constrains HOW the reach happens, so the pathway becomes auditable and deterministic. The failure mode he designs against is non-determinism, not leakage - a wrong filter in inspectable static code is a bug you fix once, while a model that sometimes pulls the wrong field is an unbounded, unauditable liability. He will therefore accept imperfect filtering and eventual leakage as the price of adoption speed, but will not accept a non-inspectable pathway.
Conscious Tech Debt for Execution Speed
When facing time pressure, explicitly acknowledge and accept technical debt rather than blocking progress. The key is making the trade-off consciously and visibly so it can be addressed later.