Revising OpenWrt Rules

Rich Brown richb.hanover at gmail.com
Tue Sep 15 20:01:36 EDT 2020


Folks,

At the last OpenWrt call, I opened my (big) mouth and volunteered to review the OpenWrt Rules (https://openwrt.org/rules)

Before I draft anything specific, I wanted to throw out some general principles to make sure we're all on the same page.

I've taken the current Rules, our ad-hoc policies for "who has commit access", along with the recent discussions to formulate these principles. That said, I'm "makin' a lotta stuff up", so I solicit your thoughts, questions, and comments. Thanks.

Rich

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General Principles:

The OpenWrt Project (TOP? might be a cool acronym...) is governed by a group of Decisionmakers (I'm open to other names - I'll use this term through the remainder of this document.) All Decisionmakers have demonstrated a long-standing commitment to OpenWrt through valuable contributions of code, documentation, organization, or leadership of the project.

Decisionmakers affect the direction of the project  - product features, code, documentation, governance - by their personal efforts and by proposing changes to other Decisionmakers. The project adopts proposals by a majority vote of all Decisionmakers. 

OpenWrt's success hinges on the trust developed between Decisionmakers. Because they trust the judgement of other Decisionmakers, the project can move forward without every Decisionmaker needing to examine every issue.

A contributor to OpenWrt may become a Decisionmaker when it is obvious that they have a track record of high quality submissions (code, documentation, organizational suggestions, etc) that enhance the project. After a nomination by (one? two?) Decisionmakers, a simple majority vote is needed to welcome a new Decisionmaker.

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 the Project can remind members of their obligations, and remove them from the rolls if they cannot/no longer wish to participate. 

[I am less sure of this next point - I'm happy to discuss...] In the founding spirit of LEDE/OpenWrt, all Decisionmakers 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 only request the permissions necessary for their participation.

Assorted stuff that I don't think is controversial...

- All decisions need to be made public
- Any infrastructure (whether outsourced or run on our servers) requires at least three people with full admin rights
- Changing these rules requires 2/3 vote
- No "openwrt.org" email accounts
- Be nice to each other





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