Discussion on Addressing Voting Issues and Proposed Update to Committer Rules

[elias at eliashaisch.de]

Thank you all for your efforts! Overall, I really like the proposed changes.

That said, I’d like to suggest introducing a deadline for certain votes — or, technically speaking, a TTL (Time To Live) for each vote. In addition, a standardized and slightly more assertive call to participate in voting could be helpful. Voting is important, and while the right to vote should not be restricted lightly, the importance of participation should be clearly emphasized.

For rule changes, a longer TTL might be appropriate. Perhaps something like this is already in place and I simply overlooked it. My thinking is that even active members may occasionally be unavailable. Rule changes tend to be less urgent but are also less frequent — and therefore deserve adequate time for discussion.

Moreover, I believe the current proposal better reflects the actual dynamics of a software project like this — one that operates at the intersection of political and commercial interests from various segments of society. It’s important to acknowledge this reality, since decisions in such projects often have not just technical, but also social implications.

Of course, additions like this can always be made later and should not delay the current vote. I encourage all of you to support this rule change. It moves the project forward and makes its development more transparent and accessible.

Regarding Rich
recent changes and his repo, I suggest, the changes to the threshold could be done in a dedicated vote. The use of git for this is a nice idea!

Elias

29.05.2025 20:42:26 Hauke Mehrtens <hauke at hauke-m.de>:

> 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.
> ------
> 
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