Every technical governing body in the Foundation must have a documented
governance model that describes its basic operation. This must be documented in
the appropriate repository and referenced by the README.md.
A Working Group (WG) is established by first defining a charter that can be ratified by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). A charter is a statement of purpose, a list of responsibilities and a list of initial membership.
A technical governing body needs 3 initial members. These should be individuals already undertaking the work described in the charter.
The list of responsibilities should be specific. The only recourse the TAC has over a WG is to revoke the entire charter and take on the work previously done by the WG themselves or charter a new WG to take on that work.
If the responsibilities described in the charter are currently undertaken by another governing body then the charter will additionally have to be ratified by that governing body.
Additional information for starting a WG can be found in the WG charter template in this directory.
The WG shall meet regularly using tools that enable participation by the community (e.g. quarterly on a Google Hangout On Air, or through any other appropriate means selected by the membership). The meeting shall be directed by a moderator chosen by the membership. Minutes or an appropriate recording shall be taken and made available to the community through accessible public postings.
Items are added to the meeting agenda that are considered contentious or are modifications of governance, contribution policy or membership.
Any community member or contributor can ask that something be added to the next meeting's agenda by logging a GitHub Issue. Any Collaborator, WG member or the moderator can add the item to the agenda by adding the WG-agenda tag to the issue.
Prior to each meeting the moderator will share the Agenda with members. Members can add any items they like to the agenda at the beginning of each meeting. Neither the moderator nor the membership can veto or remove items from the agenda.
The members may invite persons or representatives from certain projects to participate in a non-voting capacity.
The moderator is responsible for summarizing the discussion of each agenda item and sends the summary of the discussion as a pull request to this repository after the meeting. Note that the moderator could delegate this task to someone, if desired.
WGs follow 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 member can call for either a closing vote or a vote to table the issue to the next meeting. The call for a vote must be seconded by a majority of the members present or else the discussion will continue. Simple majority wins.
Once the TAC ratifies a charter, the governing body inherits the following documentation for governance, contribution, conduct and an APACHE 2.0 LICENSE. The governing body is free to change these documents through their own governance process, hence the term "bootstrap". It is recommended when starting a WG that the appropriate template found in this directory be used.