Propose a definition of Collector to be included in the specification

[codeboten]

What are you trying to achieve?

I'd like to include a definition of what a collector is in the specification. I think this will help set expectations for end users. I discussed this with various Collector contributors at Kubecon NA 2024 as well as other collaborators in the OTel community and everyone seemed to think it would be good to have this in the spec.

Additional context.

This is related to open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector#8555

[tigrannajaryan]

everyone seemed to think it would be good to have this in the spec.

@codeboten can you please expand a bit on this? I would like to understand what the goal is.

Do we see a particular confusion about what a Collector is and want to clarify it? Do we think there may be more than one "Collector" implementations that can match the spec if we define it?

what a collector is in the specification.

Anything prevents from defining this in the Collector repo itself by Collector maintainers? Does the location of the definition of "what a Collector is" matter? Do you want it to be in the specification repo because you are looking for TC/GC help?

[codeboten]

@codeboten can you please expand a bit on this? I would like to understand what the goal is.

The purpose of defining what a Collector is in the specification is to document expectations and boundaries of collector, collector distro, collector components for both end users and vendors. Mostly I want to ensure that users aren't locked in to a thing that claims to be an opentelemetry collector because there isn't an existing definition of it.

As a user, i want to ensure that whatever thing i use will allow me to bring my own components from the OpenTelemetry ecosystem.

As a provider of a Collector (vendor, open source project, or other), having a definition will allow me to validate that whatever I'm offering to end users, matches their expectations by testing my thing against the specified behaviour.

Note that the goal here is not to disqualify existing collectors things in the wild today. Ideally this just means that anything calling itself a collector will be able to take the steps to be compatible with the specification we agree on.

[yurishkuro]

Please close this issue and continue discussion on the original ticket in the Collector repo, until there is actually a decision.

[codeboten]

I opened the issue here to bring this up to the attention of the specification SIG which was done today. During the call there was a consensus that having a definition in the specification was desirable. I can close this as completed.