Discussion on Addressing Voting Issues and Proposed Update to Committer Rules

[Hauke Mehrtens]

Hi Rich,

Sorry for the late answer.


On 5/31/25 13:47, Rich Brown wrote:
> Hauke,
> 
> This is terrific work. It aligns with what I hoped would occur. I have 
> tuned up the wording, preserving most of the original text, while 
> (hopefully) making the rules more concise and more operational.
> 
> I uploaded the rules you sent to a github repo, so that it's easier to 
> see the changes I am suggesting:
> 
> See the updated document at: https://github.com/richb-hanover/ 
> OpenWrtRules/blob/main/OpenWrt%20Rules.md <https://github.com/richb- 
> hanover/OpenWrtRules/blob/main/OpenWrt%20Rules.md>
> Check out the diff's at: https://github.com/richb-hanover/OpenWrtRules/ 
> commit/d9f3a7860e79be33bec09f18868f2fda833d3622 <https://github.com/ 
> richb-hanover/OpenWrtRules/commit/d9f3a7860e79be33bec09f18868f2fda833d3622>

I already had the rules in a local git repo, but did not upload it, 
thanks for creating the repository.

> Here are the major changes:
> 
> * Removed reference to LEDE. (It's ancient history - we merged back in 
> January 2018.)

Thanks

> * Separated the rules into sections. The headings don't really change 
> the rules, but organize the big topics. I don't feel strongly that these 
> headings need appear in the final set of rules.

Thanks
> * I very much like the change in terminology from "committer" to 
> "member". But the change demands rules that specify who has commit 
> rights, so there's a new section.

I think this is a bit problematic:
 > Active members have commit access to all repositories. Inactive
 > members and non-members do not.

We have the package feed where other non members have commit rights too. 
and some active members may not want commit rights to all repositories.

Maybe change it to:
 > Active members can have commit access to all repositories.
And remove the last sentence.

I would like to say that they can have access if they want to, but do 
not have to have access. Others may have access to some repositories.
I do not want to change our current practice much, I just want to make 
it possible to be a OpenWrt member without having commit access to the 
main repository. Maybe you know a better wording.

> * I changed the wording that any active member could "request that a 
> non-participating member switch to inactive status" (instead of "be 
> moved to inactive status") The resulting actions are the same: if that 
> member agrees, they become inactive; if they wish to remain active, they 
> can; if there is no response, they become inactive. (I would counsel a 
> second mail notification, but that doesn't need to be in the OpenWrt Rules.)

I like the change. I would also remind people about if I would send such 
a request multiple times, but I agree that this is not needed in the rules.
> * Voting: I gave names to "Rule Change votes" (75%) and "simple approval 
> votes" (two-thirds). Project matters, development direction, and new 
> members all require a simple approval.

I do not get this sentence:
 > A simple approval is required.
This bulletin point was just describing how a vote should look like in 
general. I also would like to have it in front of the bulletin points 
describing the approval rates.

> * I propose using the term "administrators" for the people who take care 
> of our systems.

Thanks

> 
> QUESTIONS:
> 
> 1. Do these voting thresholds work in practice? If we exclude obviously 
> "non-participating" people (perhaps people who haven't emailed to 
> openwrt-adm in the last 90 or 365 days) from previous votes, could we 
> have passed all the recent proposals?

With the current proposal this would be based on the active members 
listed on the OpenWrt wiki page.
We talked to have activate voting members. all people who participated 
in the votes of the last 3 months or the last 3 votes if there were less 
than 3 votes in the last 3 months.

> 2. Is there a reason to distinguish between a two-thirds vote from a 75% 
> vote (it's not that much different...)

It is 66% vs. 75% ;-)

> 
> 3. Do we need to distinguish between approval and "no opinion" votes? A 
> proposal that generated a lot of "no opinion" responses would fail the 
> simple (two-thirds) approval. Is that what we desire? [1]

Yes that would be a problem. The current proposal would count neutral 
votes as disapproval. You could not vote at all. Like send a mail and 
say you do not have an opinion, but that would also not count as a vote 
at all.

I think we should change it to have the approval rating just based on 
the agree and disagree votes and do not count the neutral votes. They 
would still count as oppose votes for the quorum.

Hauke

> 
> I invite additional comments.
> 
> Thanks again,
> 
> Rich
> 
> [1] For example, I would tend to vote +1 for people who are proposed to 
> become members. For anyone who has a long-enough history of 
> contributions to be proposed, I am happy to embrace them: they've worked 
> hard for OpenWrt. But for matters of infrastructure, (hypothethical 
> example, "should we switch from git to mercurial?" :-), I would likely 
> vote "no opinion" because I don't understand the issues, and would defer 
> to others' opinions. But would that "no opinion" vote cause the proposal 
> to fail?
> 
>> On May 29, 2025, at 14:39, Hauke Mehrtens <hauke at hauke-m.de> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you for al the good input.
>>
>> I updated the proposal to also change the voting rules.
>> I restricted the votes to Yes/No votes. A vote like: "Where do we want 
>> to host: own git, github or gitlab?" would not be possible any more. 
>> Someone would have to propose a change where we can vote approve or 
>> disprove to.
>>
>> I also changed the number of votes needed. Normal votes need 2/3 of 
>> participating voters approval and 1/3 of all. For rule changes I 
>> changed it to 75% of participating voters and 50% of all.
>>
>> I also reordered the rules a bit.
>>
>> I would also like to change committers to members. This would allow us 
>> to add people who do not contribute code to become a OpenWrt team 
>> member. To improve this I also removed the rule that everyone needs 
>> full commit rights.
>>
>> Everyone who is currently listed as committer will become a active 
>> member after this rule change.
>>
>> If no one disagrees I would like to do an official vote with the 
>> version changing committers to members.
>>
>> If I accidentally changed any other meaning in the rules please tell 
>> me now.
>>
>> Hauke
>>
>>
>> The current version with committers:
>> ------
>> The roles within the OpenWrt (formerly LEDE) project are: active 
>> committers, inactive committers, and non-committers. There is no core 
>> developer group or any other specially privileged members.
>> Committers may voluntarily switch between active and inactive status 
>> at any time.
>> The commit credentials of inactive committers are revoked and will be 
>> restored upon their return to active status.
>> Any active committer may request that another committer be moved to 
>> inactive status. This request must be sent by email to the person 
>> concerned, with the openwrt-adm mailing list in CC. If the person 
>> either agrees or does not respond within 30 days, they will be moved 
>> to inactive status.
>> There shall be only full commit rights in any case, no partial access 
>> or otherwise restricted access to the repositories.
>> All active committers have the right to vote and are invited to 
>> liberally exercise this voting right in order to keep a broad 
>> consensus on project matters.
>> To propose changes to project matters or the overall development 
>> direction, a formal proposal must be sent to the openwrt-adm mailing 
>> list. The proposal must clearly describe the suggested changes and 
>> include a specific deadline for when the voting period will end. 
>> Active committers may vote to either approve or disapprove the proposal.
>> For the proposal to be accepted, it must achieve a two-thirds majority 
>> approval among the active committers who participate in the vote. 
>> Additionally, it must receive approval from at least one-third of all 
>> active OpenWrt committers, regardless of whether they participated in 
>> the vote.
>> Changes to these rules require a 75% majority among the active 
>> committers who participate in the vote, as well as 50% approval from 
>> all active OpenWrt committers.
>> Frequent contributors may become committers after a simple vote among 
>> existing active committers. Project members are free to suggest 
>> suitable candidates.
>> Any votes and decisions made will be made public on the project websites.
>> Project infrastructure should be outsourced FOSS community operated 
>> services whenever possible in order to allow project members to focus 
>> on actual development efforts.
>> Any infrastructure that cannot be outsourced and/or is operated by the 
>> project itself shall be administrable by at least three different 
>> people to reduce the likelyhood of the project getting locked out due 
>> to operators being unreachable. Responsible operators for the various 
>> services shall be documented publicly.
>> The project will not offer email accounts under its project domain for 
>> privacy and equality reasons.
>> Be nice to each other.
>> ------
>>
>> The current version with change to members.
>> ------
>> The roles within the OpenWrt (formerly LEDE) project are: active 
>> members, inactive members, and non-members. There is no core developer 
>> group or any other specially privileged members.
>> Members may voluntarily switch between active and inactive status at 
>> any time.
>> The commit credentials of inactive members are revoked and will be 
>> restored upon their return to active status.
>> Any active member may request that another member be moved to inactive 
>> status. This request must be sent by email to the person concerned, 
>> with the openwrt-adm mailing list in CC. If the person either agrees 
>> or does not respond within 30 days, they will be moved to inactive status.
>> All active members have the right to vote and are invited to liberally 
>> exercise this voting right in order to keep a broad consensus on 
>> project matters.
>> To propose changes to project matters or the overall development 
>> direction, a formal proposal must be sent to the openwrt-adm mailing 
>> list. The proposal must clearly describe the suggested changes and 
>> include a specific deadline for when the voting period will end. 
>> Active members may vote to either approve or disapprove the proposal.
>> For the proposal to be accepted, it must achieve a two-thirds majority 
>> approval among the active members who participate in the vote. 
>> Additionally, it must receive approval from at least one-third of all 
>> active OpenWrt members, regardless of whether they participated in the 
>> vote.
>> Changes to these rules require a 75% majority among the active members 
>> who participate in the vote, as well as 50% approval from all active 
>> OpenWrt members.
>> Frequent contributors may become members after a simple vote among 
>> existing active members. Project members are free to suggest suitable 
>> candidates.
>> Any votes and decisions made will be made public on the project websites.
>> Project infrastructure should be outsourced FOSS community operated 
>> services whenever possible in order to allow project members to focus 
>> on actual development efforts.
>> Any infrastructure that cannot be outsourced and/or is operated by the 
>> project itself shall be administrable by at least three different 
>> people to reduce the likelyhood of the project getting locked out due 
>> to operators being unreachable. Responsible operators for the various 
>> services shall be documented publicly.
>> The project will not offer email accounts under its project domain for 
>> privacy and equality reasons.
>> Be nice to each other.
>> ------
>