There has been a discussion within the TSC about migrating to a Project Team Lead (PTL) model for managing the individual repositories within Tungsten Fabric.
This is the current proposal for TSC review.
Project Roles
Contributor
A Contributor is someone who contributes to a project. Contributions could take the form of code, code reviews, Wiki and documentation contributions, Jira activities or other artifacts. Contributors work with a project’s Committer and the project’s sub-community. A Contributor may be promoted to a Committer by the project’s Committers after demonstrating a history of contributions to that project.
Committer
For each project there is a set of Contributors approved for the right to commit code to the source code management system (the “Committers”) for that project.
- Committer rights are per project; being a Committer on one project does not give an individual committer rights on any other project.
- The Committers will be the decision makers on all matters for a project including design, code, patches, and releases for a project.
- Committers are the best available individuals, but usually work full-time on components in active development.
- All project committers information such as name, company, and Contact information should be documented in the wiki under the project.
In order to preserve meritocracy in selection of Committers while ensuring diversity of Committers, each initial project is encouraged to take on at least two Committers from different companies (subject to meritocracy).
Project Technical Leader
A project is required to elect a Project Technical Leader (“PTL”). The PTL acts as the de facto spokesperson for the project (feature projects and integration projects).
Project Technical Leader Candidates
Candidates for the project’s Project Technical Leader will be derived from the Committers of the Project.
Candidates must self nominate.
Project Technical Leader Voters
Only Committers for a project are eligible to vote for a project’s Project Technical Lead.
Project Technical Leader Election Mechanics
An election for Project Technical Leader occurs when any of the following are true:
- The project is initially created
- The Project Technical Leader resigns his or her post
- The majority of committers on a project vote to call a new election
- One year has passed since the last Project Technical Leader election for that project
Project Operations
Project Decisions Making Process
Technical and release decisions for a project should be made by consensus of that project’s Committers. If consensus cannot be reached, decisions are taken by majority vote of a project’s Committers. Committers may, by majority vote, delegate (or revoke delegation) of any portion of such decisions to an alternate open, documented (wiki), and traceable decision making process.
Committer Lifecycle
Adding Committers
- Initial Committers for a project will be specified at project creation
- Committer rights for a project are earned via contribution and community trust. Committers for a project select and vote for new Committers for that project.
- New Committers for a project should have a demonstrable established history of meritocratic contributions.
Adding Committers to moribund projects
In the event that a project has no active committers (e.g., due to resignations, etc.), the TSC may appoint an interim Committer from a project’s active Contributors. This term shall last until the next release date, after which time the Committer must stand for election from amongst other Committers on the project to maintain his or her status. In this special case, approval requires a majority of committers who respond within two weeks. If no one responds by the deadline, then the committer status is approved. This provision allows a project to continue development following an unexpected change in personnel.
The method by which the TSC appoints an interim Committer is first by request to the TF-TSC email list indicating the request to appoint an interim Committer for a project. After the reception of such an email, the normal TSC decision process applies.
Removing Committers
A Committer may voluntarily resign from a project by making a public request to the PTL to resign (via the project email list and cc to tsc@lists.tungsten.io ).
A Committer for a project who is disruptive, or has been inactive on that project for an extended period (e.g., six or more months) may have his or her Committer status revoked by the project’s Project Technical Leader or by 2/3 supermajority vote of the project’s committers.
The Project Technical Leader is responsible for informing the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) of any committers who are removed or resigned via the email list: tsc@lists.tungsten.io.
Former committers removed for reasons other than being disruptive may be listed as ‘Emeritus Committers’. That title expresses gratitude for their service but conveys none of the privileges of being a Committer.