enabling the definition and enforcement of governance rules in open source systems
TRANSCRIPT
Enabling the Definition and Enforcement of Governance
Rules in Open Source Systems
Javier Cánovas, Jordi Cabot
ICSE – SEIS conferenceMay 2015
GovernanceMaking decisions
Flickr/MartisFich
Examples
Why?
io.js aims to provide faster and predictable release cycles. It currently merges in the latest language, API and performance improvements to V8 while also updating libuv and other base libraries.
This project aims to continue development of io.js under an "open governance model" as opposed to corporate stewardship.
Source: https://iojs.org/en/faq.html
Examples
Source: https://commonspace.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/participationplan/
Mozilla needs a more creative and radical approach to participation in order to succeed.
…What’s less clear: what practical steps do we take to supercharge participation at Mozilla? …
…we’ve written a first draft Mozilla Participation Plan. This plan is focused on increasing the impact of participation efforts already underway across …
Examples
Source: http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2015/Feb/42
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It’s not so strange …
It’s not so strange …
It’s not so strange …
It’s not so strange …
Tholman/elevator.js
Governance?
A governance model describes the roles that project participants can take on and the process for decision making within the project.
In addition, it describes the ground rules for participation in the project and the processes for communicating and sharing within the project team and community.
In other words it is the governance model that prevents an open source project from descending into chaos.
Is it really necessary?
Our proposalDefining and Enforcing Governance Rules
Flickr/WillScullin
What do we propose?
Defining Governance Rules
Defining Governance Rules
Project YOUR_PROJECT { Roles: Leader, Contributors Deadlines: D1 : 7 days Rules: R1 : Majority { applied to Task when TaskReview people Leader, Contributors range Present minVotes All deadline D1 } }
DSL
Verbalization
All proposals for bugs and feature requests will be accepted or rejected in 7 days by the leader and the contributors of the project according to a majority voting process with a 50% of positive votes. To calculate the ratio, only those votes issued at the moment of applying the rule will be counted.
Wizard
What do we propose?
What do we propose?
governance.md
governance.md
Conclusion
- Assessment of the need for mechanisms to facilitate the understanding of governance in software projects
- Approach to define and enforce governance rules
- Proposal to bring the idea to life (governance.md)
Challenges and innovative aspects
Future vision
- Study usability aspects
- How to specify other rules (e.g., team organization)
- Support for privacy concerns
- Mining existing projects to infer/study their rules
- Empirical evaluation at mid/long term
Thanks!
Javier Luis Cánovas Izquierdo
[email protected]@jlcanovas
Jordi Cabot
[email protected]@softmodeling