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‎_posts/2026-03-05-evolving-governance.md‎

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---
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layout: post
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title: "Scaling for the Future: Evolving Kroxylicious Governance"
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date: 2026-03-05 00:00:00 +1300
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author: "Tom Bentley"
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author_url: "https://github.com/tombentley"
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categories:
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---
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Hot on the heels of [the release of Kroxylicious 0.19.0]({{ '/blog/kroxylicious-proxy/releases/2026/03/04/release-0_19_0.html' | absolute_url}}) we have some other news to share.
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We are excited to announce a shift in how we manage the project, partly based on the proven model used by the Apache Software Foundation.
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We’ve always believed that open-source success is built on transparency, community trust, and a shared vision.
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The project continues to evolve, and our governance model needs to change with it while ensuring the project remains truly vendor-neutral.
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## Decoupling Roles: Introducing Committers and Project Managers
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Previously, we relied on a flat "Code Owner" structure.
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While this worked well in the early days, we realised it was starting to make it harder to scale the project:
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In order to grow, we are going to need more people able to review and merge contributions.
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But those people might not always be interested, or able to make a commitment to helping ensure the project’s long term sustainability.
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To solve this, we have split these duties into two distinct roles:
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* **Committers** focus on code quality and technical output.
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They have write access to our repositories and are responsible for reviewing and merging contributions.
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* **Project Managers** (PMs) focus on the long-term health and sustainability of the project.
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They manage the governance files, handle community elections, and ensure the project remains aligned with its goals and deal with our interactions with the CommonHaus foundation.
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We hope that by decoupling these roles, we’ll be better able to scale our number of Committers to match our review volume without burdening them with administrative overhead.
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It creates a clearer pathway for contributors to take on leadership roles based on their interests, whether that’s deep technical work or project stewardship.
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These changes are already reflected in our updated [`GOVERNANCE.md`](https://github.com/kroxylicious/.github/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md).
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The initial [`COMMITTERS.md`](https://github.com/kroxylicious/.github/blob/main/COMMITTERS.md) and [`PMs.md`](https://github.com/kroxylicious/.github/blob/main/PMs.md) are the same people who were previously code owners and project admins.
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This revised governance model has not changed anyone's access.
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## Moving Beyond `CODEOWNERS`
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We are also moving away from using the GitHub `CODEOWNERS` file to enforce directory-level restrictions.
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We trust Committers to know the limits of their expertise and to pull in the right subject matter experts when a PR spans areas outside their immediate knowledge.
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This reduces the friction of managing complex ownership files and avoids the pitfalls of stale ownership definitions that don't match the current team structure.
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## Strengthening Our Organizational Memory
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The 90 day history we have on our free Slack workspace is starting to hurt.
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As we grow, we need to ensure that important technical decisions aren't lost.
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We think that, even in 2026, mailing lists are the least-worst way to share and record formal technical discussions and voting.
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* The barrier to entry is low
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* Everyone gets their own copy of the history, but there's a public archive too
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* Everyone can use familiar tools to organise and search history
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These features should ensure our decision-making process is archived, searchable, and publicly verifiable.
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So we'd like the [`kroxylicious-dev`][kroxylicious-dev] list to be our primary channel for development discussions, open to all contributors and committers.
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Meanwhile, Slack remains our home for quick, day-to-day conversation.
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<div class="container mt-4">
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<div class="table-responsive">
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<table class="table table-striped table-bordered align-middle">
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<thead class="table-primary">
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<tr>
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<th scope="col" class="w-50">Use <strong>Slack</strong> for...</th>
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<th scope="col" class="w-50">Use <strong>Mailing Lists</strong> for...</th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td><strong>Quick check-ins</strong> and status updates.</td>
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<td><strong>Formal technical discussions</strong> and proposals.</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td><strong>Real-time coordination</strong> on active tasks.</td>
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<td><strong>Voting</strong> on technical decisions.</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td><strong>Informal brainstorming</strong> and team culture.</td>
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<td><strong>Summaries</strong> of major decisions made in Slack.</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td><strong>Urgent alerts</strong> that need an immediate response.</td>
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<td><strong>Long-form information</strong> that should be searchable.</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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</div>
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</div>
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So how do you join the [`kroxylicious-dev`][kroxylicious-dev] list?
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* You can read and subscribe to the list on [google groups](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/kroxylicious-dev).
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* Alternatively, you can subscribe by sending an empty email to [kroxylicious-dev+subscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-dev+subscribe@googlegroups.com),
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* and unsubscribe by sending an empty email to [kroxylicious-dev+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-dev+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com)
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The project managers will use a private list, but only for communication that needs to remain private.
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You can contact them by email to [kroxylicious-pms@googlegroups.com](mailto:kroxylicious-pms@googlegroups.com).
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## Building Community Connection
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Governance isn't just about documents and voting; it’s about people.
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We want to ensure that our contributors feel connected to the project's direction and to each other.
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To facilitate more direct and synchronous collaboration, we are launching a regular Community Call that anyone can join.
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The Kroxylicious community is spread around the world, and we want to be as inclusive as possible.
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In particular, we didn't want the meeting to always be in the middle of the night for someone in an unfortunate timezone.
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To support this, while the meeting cadence is every two weeks, the meeting time will alternate by ±12 hours every other call.
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But timezones and daylight savings time makes it a bit tricky to describe in a blog post.
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You can see the time of upcoming meetings [on the website](https://kroxylicious.io/join-us/community-call/), and add the meeting schedule to your calendar app.
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## What’s Next?
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We’re excited to continue building Kroxylicious in an environment that is open, inclusive, and built to last.
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Check out the updated docs and let us know what you think!
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[kroxylicious-dev]: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/kroxylicious-dev

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