Revising OpenWrt Rules

Thu Oct 15 14:25:53 EDT 2020

Good thoughts all... A few responses:

1) That's why I called it an RC1 version.

2) I first want to note that the original OpenWrt Rules were pretty good. They nailed most of the critical issues for running a project like ours. However, they had a definite (but unspoken) set of assumptions that were a reaction to the OpenWrt/LEDE fork. 

3) The (new) explanatory text attempts to outline our principles even for newcomers to the project. More explicitly, I wanted these rules to express:

* Leadership of OpenWrt is more than simply contributions of code into git. We succeed because of a huge parallel effort to document that code (in the wiki), support users (in the forum), and make decisions about our path forward. All those other leaders deserve a voice in decisions.
* Trust between Decisionmakers will minimize the concerns about someone "going rogue". Decisionmakers all have a long track record of good judgement, so we don't have to write a zillion rules to specify what happens in every specific case.
* Our shared obligation to keep the community (and ourselves) informed of our actions and plans.

4) OpenWrt isn't a "governmental body". We don't need to be controlled by mindless conformance to these rules. If a vote was requested, and a critical member said, "I have a new job/spouse/baby, and can't think about this for a month...", it would be entirely rational for us to agree to put the vote on hold (after public discussion, of course). 

5) More to the point, as a volunteer-run organization, we can't really "make" anyone (or even ourselves) do anything. All these rules can do is outline our principles and document our decision making process.

6) (Little did I know that I would be writing a mini set of Federalist Papers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers) :-)

Thanks again for these thoughtful and respectful comments. I would be happy to iterate toward an alternate statements of rules. 

Rich

> On Oct 14, 2020, at 9:50 PM, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 14/10/2020 21:37, Adrian Schmutzler wrote:
>> 
>> <clip>
>> 
>> And where it actually adds a new precise detail (the vote deadline), my personal view is that this shouldn't be carved into stone, as it would make us inflexible. (I'd actually also drop point 7 entirely, as its first part is actually trivial).
> I mostly agree that write things into stone isn't something really most of the time, however some times they need to be well defined in order to avoid controversies or at least be stated very objective how this will happen. Ex for this case: define a min and max time where the period can be chosen by the person who initiates the vote.
> 
> Also I believe such type of rule need some time of minimal period well know beforehand by all for various reasons: 1) let all decisionsmakers know how fast need need to decide on anything 2) make sure there will be a significant amount of votes to validate the decision 3) bring some security to the process and garantees that in certain decisions there will be minimal time for some discussion when needed.
> 
> Regards
> Fernando
> 
>> 
>> So, my problem is a general one. I will try to have a look how we can resolve this situation (always speaking from my personal point of view, of course) during the next few days.
>> 
>> Let's see what the others think, I'm just a single opinion anyway.
>> 
>> Best
>> 
>> Adrian
>> 
>>> Regards
>>> Fernando
>>> 
>>> On 14/10/2020 20:00, Adrian Schmutzler wrote:
>>>> Hi Rich,
>>>> 
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: openwrt-adm [mailto:openwrt-adm-bounces at lists.openwrt.org]
>>> On
>>>>> Behalf Of Rich Brown
>>>>> Sent: Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2020 20:37
>>>>> To: Richard E. Brown <richb.hanover at gmail.com>
>>>>> Cc: OpenWrt Project Administration <openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org>
>>>>> Subject: Re: Revising OpenWrt Rules
>>>>> 
>>>>> I offer the following as a "Release Candidate 1" replacement for the
>>>>> original OpenWrt Rules at https://openwrt.org/rules. I believe they
>>>>> are a fair summary of the responses to my original notes.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Much of this is a restatement of the original rules, retaining those
>>>>> procedures but making explicit the sense of trust between people that
>>>>> underlies the current rules.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I did inject a change in establishing a 14-day period for formal
>>>>> votes on the OpenWrt-Admin list. There were two reasons: for agility
>>>>> - to prevent undecided issues from "hanging out there" indefinitely,
>>>>> and also to provide a basis for detecting when we should ask
>>>>> Decisionmakers whether they wish to participate further.
>>>>> 
>>>>> As an RC1 document, further comments are welcome.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Finally, thank you for all the deeply considered responses and for
>>>>> the delightfully respectful discussion. It makes me proud to be a
>>>>> member of the Project.
>>>> Thanks again for taking care of this important matter.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm a fan of the current OpenWrt rules as they define everything necessary
>>> in a short but precise way.
>>>> Unfortunately, I must say that I'm surprised by the amount of changes that
>>> are proposed here.
>>>> My understanding of the virtual meeting was that we discussed necessary
>>> changes about the role of the committers ("decision makers") and who
>>> would be eligible to become one.
>>>> I'm fine with the term "decision makers", and my change would have been
>>> to simply replace the "committers" by "decision makers". The only sentence
>>> that needed to be altered content-wise would be the first rule, and "full
>>> commit rights" -> "full access" in rule 5. This would solve our problem, and
>>> mostly keep the simple, established rules in place.
>>>> I'm sorry, but I didn't expect so much other things to be altered and added
>>> here, or I would have raised concerns earlier in the process.
>>>> Personally I'd rather keep it simple, and only change the few things
>>> necessary to address the problem.
>>>> Best
>>>> 
>>>> Adrian
>>>> 
>>>>> Rich
>>>>> 
>>>>> -----------
>>>>> 
>>>>> OpenWrt Project Rules - RC1 14Oct2020
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1. The OpenWrt Project (the "Project") is governed by a group of
>>>>> Decisionmakers who have demonstrated a long-standing commitment to
>>>>> OpenWrt through high quality contributions of code, documentation,
>>>>> organization, or leadership of the Project.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2. Decisionmakers affect the direction of the Project - product
>>>>> features, code, documentation, governance - by their personal
>>>>> efforts, by proposing changes to other Decisionmakers, and by
>>>>> approving contributions from others. The Project adopts proposals by
>>>>> a majority vote of all Decisionmakers.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 3. OpenWrt's success hinges on the trust of character and judgement
>>>>> developed between Decisionmakers. Because of that trust, the Project
>>>>> can move forward without requiring every Decisionmaker to examine and
>>>>> agree to every decision.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 4. A contributor to OpenWrt may become a Decisionmaker when it is
>>>>> obvious that they have a track record of high quality contributions
>>>>> (code, documentation, organizational suggestions, etc.) that enhance the
>>> project.
>>>>> After a nomination by a Decisionmaker and second by another, a simple
>>>>> majority vote is required to welcome a new Decisionmaker. The current
>>>>> list of Decisionmakers appears on this page. [Move the current list of
>>> "People"
>>>>> from the https://openwrt.org/about page]
>>>>> 
>>>>> 5. To ensure that OpenWrt always has a quorum for votes,
>>>>> Decisionmakers are required to remain active in the project. We will
>>>>> develop a process whereby we can remind members of their obligations,
>>>>> and remove them from the list if they no longer wish to participate,
>>>>> or do not participate in votes for three months.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 6. Decisionmakers owe an obligation of transparency to the members of
>>>>> the OpenWrt community. All decisions must be made public on the
>>>>> Project website. To the extent possible (exempting, for example,
>>>>> certain matters such as personnel and security issues), the decision
>>>>> making process should also be conducted in public.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 7. Discussions of proposals may take place in any venue: the
>>>>> OpenWrt-Admin list, the OpenWrt-Devel list, the IRC channels, the
>>>>> OpenWrt Forum, and elsewhere. A formal call for a vote on the
>>>>> OpenWrt-Admin list will be held open for 14 days: Decisionmakers must
>>>>> respond (with approve, disapprove, abstain, or a request for more
>>> information) in that time frame.
>>>>> 8. Any Decisionmaker may request, and automatically be granted,
>>>>> permission to commit changes to code, the documentation, forum, etc.
>>>>> However, we rely on the judgement of all Decisionmakers to recognize
>>>>> their strengths and we expect they will only request the permissions
>>>>> necessary for their participation.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 9. Any infrastructure should be FOSS, whether outsourced or operating
>>>>> on Project servers. Any service requires at least three people with
>>>>> full rights to administer it. Those administrators will be documented
>>> publicly.
>>>>> 10. The Project will not provide email accounts to individuals under
>>>>> its domain name.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 11. Changes to these rules require a two-thirds majority vote of
>>>>> Decisionmakers.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 12. All OpenWrt community members agree to be nice to each other.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> openwrt-adm mailing list
>>>>> openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org
>>>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-adm
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> openwrt-adm mailing list
>>>>> openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org
>>>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-adm
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> openwrt-adm mailing list
>>> openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org
>>> https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-adm
> 
> _______________________________________________
> openwrt-adm mailing list
> openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org
> https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-adm