Governance

This is a meritocratic, consensus-based community project. Anyone with an interest in the project can join the community, contribute to the project design and participate in the decision making process. This document describes how that participation takes place and how to set about earning merit within the project community.

Scope

The DataLad project develops software that is part of a larger ecosystem of interoperable components, also contributed by other entities. This document is exclusively concerned with the governance of a subset of those components that are collectively developed and maintained by the DataLad project. The components presently are:

• datalad legacy code base
• datasalad utility library
• datalad-core framework building blocks
• datalad-concepts metadata schema/vocabulary

Changes to this list are made by the project management committee.

Project setup and processes

The sections listed below provide detailed descriptions of individual aspects of this project’s governance.

• Communication
• Roles and responsibilities
• Project management committee
• Support
• Contribution process
• Decision making process

Acknowledgments

This document is based on a template written by Ross Gardler and Gabriel Hanganu accessible at http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/meritocraticgovernancemodel.