The Planetary Software Organization will operate transparently, openly, inclusively, collaboratively, and ethically. Project proposals, timelines, and status must not merely be open, but also easily visible to outsiders.
Most large, complex open source communities have both a technical governance model and a business governance model that provide guidance and leadership in these areas. The Planetary Software’s governance model provides technical guidance and leadership via the Technical Steering Committee (“TSC”). Planetary Software does not (yet) have a business leadership model.
The charter amendment process is the means by which the TSC proposes changes to this charter, and requires a simple majority of the full TSC.
TSC members are responsible for top-level technical community concerns. The role is mostly administrative and is primarily responsible for admitting new Top Level Projects and Top Level Working Groups.
TSC members can nominate new members at any time. Candidates for membership tend to be people who have a competency for community management and a high tolerance and patience for process minutiae as the TSC delegates most of its responsibilities to other projects and working groups.
A current list of TSC members is maintained in the main TSC repository.
TSC memberships are not time-limited. There is no maximum size of the TSC. The size is expected to vary in order to ensure adequate coverage of important areas of expertise, balanced with the ability to make decisions efficiently. The TSC must have at least three members.
There is no specific set of requirements or qualifications for TSC membership beyond these rules. The TSC may add additional members to the TSC by a standard TSC motion and vote. A TSC member may be removed from the TSC by voluntary resignation, by a standard TSC motion, or in accordance to the participation rules described below.
Changes to TSC membership should be posted in the agenda, and will be then discussed at the next TSC meeting. Any vote to change the TSC membership must remain open for at least a month.
The TSC may, at its discretion, invite any number of non-voting observers to participate in the public portion of TSC discussions and meetings.
The TSC shall meet regularly using tools that enable participation by the community. Responsibility for directing individual meetings falls on those members present. Minutes, or an appropriate recording, shall be taken and made available to the community through accessible public postings.
TSC members are expected to regularly participate in TSC activities.
In the case where an individual TSC member -- within any three-month period -- attends fewer than 25% of the regularly scheduled meetings, does not participate in TSC discussions, and does not participate in TSC votes, the member shall be automatically removed from the TSC. The member may be invited to continue attending TSC meetings as an observer.
The TSC exercises autonomy in setting up and maintaining procedures and policies, as well as management and administrative structures as it deems appropriate for the maintenance and operation of these projects and resources.
The TSC is responsible for all technical development within the Planetary Software Organization, including:
- Technical direction
- Setting and maintaining governance rules for the conduct and make-up of the TSC, Working Groups and other bodies within the TSC's domain
- Creating new repositories and projects under the planetarysoftware GitHub organization as required
- Setting and maintaining appropriate standards for community discourse via the various mediums under TSC control
- Maintaining a list of additional Collaborators
- Setting and maintaining standards covering contributions of code, documentation and other materials
- Mediating technical conflicts between Collaborators or Planetary Software Organization projects
The TSC serves as Planetary Software’s primary technical liaison body with external open source projects, consortiums, and groups.
Many of these responsibilities will be delegated by the TSC to appropriate bodies such as the Working Groups.
The TSC will establish and maintain a development process for the Planetary Software Organization's Projects. The development process will establish guidelines for how the developers and community will operate. It will, for example, establish appropriate timelines for TSC review (e.g. agenda items must be published at least a certain number of hours in advance of a TSC meeting).
There will be multiple Top-Level Projects (TLPs) under the Planetary Software Organization as well as Top-Level Working Groups (TLWGs). The TSC is responsible for helping these TLPs and TLWGs get organized. These TLPs and TLWGs must operate under policies as may be set by the TSC, have a well-defined scope and must work within that scope. The development process will provide for TLPs to follow the lifecycle process as described in the Project Lifecycle document.
Aspects of the lifecycle of a TLP or TLWG and the policies that they operate under are overseen by the TSC. Changes that deviate from the guidelines must be approved by the TSC in order for a TLP or a TLWG to remain sponsored by the Planetary Software Organization. Beyond these strict policies and guidelines, the TSC is also looking to encourage these aspects of TLPs and TLWGs:
- Cleanliness of code base
- Ample and diverse Contributors and Collaborators to assure vitality of the project.
- Stability (e.g. presence of test suites, stable APIs and use of an appropriate source-code control system).
- Predictability of releases
- Alignment with Planetary Software’s goals and priorities.
The TSC and the entire technical community will follow any processes as may be specified relating to the intake and license compliance review of contributions.
For internal project decisions, the TSC shall operate under Lazy Consensus. The TSC shall establish appropriate guidelines for implementing Lazy Consensus (e.g. expected notification and review time periods) within the development process.
The TSC follows a Consensus Seeking decision making model. When an agenda item has appeared to reach a consensus the moderator will ask "Does anyone object?" as a final call for dissent from the consensus.
If an agenda item cannot reach a consensus a TSC member can call for either a closing vote or a vote to table the issue to the next meeting. Such a vote must pass by two-thirds of the TSC or else the discussion will continue.
For all other votes, a simple majority of all TSC members for, or against, the issue wins. A TSC member may choose to participate in any vote through abstention.
The Planetary Software Organization Git repository is maintained by the TSC and additional Collaborators who are added by the TSC on an ongoing basis.
Individuals making significant and valuable contributions, “Contributor(s)”, are made Collaborators and given commit-access to the project. These individuals are identified by the TSC and their addition as Collaborators is discussed during the monthly TSC meeting. Modifications of the contents of the Git repository are made on a collaborative basis as defined in the development process.
Collaborators may opt to elevate significant or controversial
modifications, or modifications that have not found consensus to the TSC
for discussion by assigning the tsc-agenda tag to a pull request or
issue. The TSC should serve as the final arbiter where required. The TSC
will maintain and publish a list of current Collaborators by Project, as
well as a development process guide for Collaborators and Contributors
looking to participate in the development effort.
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Contributors: contribute code or other artifacts, but do not have the right to commit to the code base. Contributors work with the Project’s Collaborators to have code committed to the code base. A Contributor may be promoted to a Collaborator by the TSC. Contributors should rarely be encumbered by the TSC.
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Project: a technical collaboration effort, e.g. a subsystem, that is organized through the project creation process and approved by the TSC.