Roles and responsibilities
Users
Users are community members who have a need for the project. They are the most important members of the community and without them the project would have no purpose. Anyone can be a user; there are no special requirements.
The project asks its users to participate in the project and community as much as possible. User contributions help to ensure that the project outputs satisfy the needs of those users. Common user contributions include (but are not limited to):
- evangelizing about the project (e.g. a link on a website and word-of-mouth awareness raising)
- informing developers of strengths and weaknesses from a new user perspective
- providing moral support (a “thank you” goes a long way)
- showing support, e.g., by “staring” the project on GitHub or subscribing/liking/following the project on social media.
Users who continue to engage with the project and its community will often become more and more involved. Such users may find themselves becoming contributors.
Contributors
Contributors are community members who contribute in concrete ways to the project. Anyone can become a contributor, and contributions can take many forms. There is no expectation of commitment to the project, no specific skill requirements and no selection process.
In addition to their actions as users, contributors may also find themselves doing one or more of the following:
- supporting new users (existing users are often the best people to support new users)
- reporting bugs
- identifying requirements
- providing graphics and web design
- programming
- assisting with project infrastructure
- writing documentation
- fixing bugs
- adding features
Contributors engage with the project through issue trackers or other communication channels, or by writing or editing documentation. They submit changes to the project code repositories, which will be considered for inclusion by existing committers. The development mailing list is the most appropriate place to ask for help when making that first contribution.
Contributors are expected to behave in accordance with the project’s code of conduct.
As contributors gain experience and familiarity with the project, their profile within, and commitment to, the community will increase. At some stage, they may find themselves being nominated for committership.
Committers
Committers are community members who have shown that they are committed to the continued development of the project through ongoing engagement with the community. Committership allows contributors to more easily carry on with their project-related activities by giving them direct access to the project’s resources. That is, they can make changes directly to project outputs, without having to submit changes via patches.
This does not mean that a committer is free to do what they want. In fact, committers have no more authority over the project than contributors. While committership indicates a valued member of the community who has demonstrated a healthy respect for the project’s aims and objectives, their work continues to be reviewed by the community before acceptance in an official release. The key difference between a committer and a contributor is when this approval is sought from the community. A committer seeks approval after the contribution is made, rather than before.
Seeking approval after making a contribution is known as a commit-then-review process. It is more efficient to allow trusted people to make direct contributions, as the majority of those contributions will be accepted by the project. The project employs various communication mechanisms to ensure that all contributions are reviewed by the community as a whole. By the time a contributor is invited to become a committer, they will have become familiar with the project’s various tools as a user and then as a contributor.
Anyone can become a committer; there are no special requirements, other than to have shown a willingness and ability to participate in the project as a team player. Typically, a potential committer will need to show that they have an understanding of the project, its objectives and its strategy. They will also have provided valuable contributions to the project over a period of time.
New committers can be nominated by any existing committer. Once they have been nominated, there will be a vote by the project management committee (PMC). Committer voting is one of the few activities that takes place on the project’s private management channel. This is to allow PMC members to freely express their opinions about a nominee without causing embarrassment. Once the vote has been held, the outcome of the vote is communicated to the project via the development mailing list. The nominee is entitled to request an explanation of any ’no’ votes against them, regardless of the outcome of the vote. This explanation will be provided by the PMC Chair and will be anonymous and constructive in nature.
Nominees may decline their appointment as a committer. However, this is unusual, as the project does not expect any specific time or resource commitment from its community members. The intention behind the role of committer is to allow people to contribute to the project more easily, not to tie them in to the project in any formal way.
It is important to recognize that commitership is a privilege, not a right. That privilege must be earned and once earned it can be removed by the PMC in extreme circumstances. However, under normal circumstances committership exists for as long as the committer wishes to continue engaging with the project. Effective commit access to project repositories for an individual person may be disabled for security reasons when they have not contributed within the last 12 months, but is reinstated upon request by the committer.
A committer who shows an above-average level of contribution to the project, particularly with respect to its strategic direction and long-term health, may be nominated to become a member of the PMC.
Project management committee (PMC)
The project management committee has additional responsibilities over and above those of a committer. These responsibilities ensure the smooth running of the project. PMC members are expected to review code contributions, participate in strategic planning, approve changes to the governance model and manage the copyrights within the project outputs.
Members of the PMC do not have significant authority over other members of the community, although it is the PMC that votes on new committers. It also makes decisions when community consensus cannot be reached. The PMC also decides whether to include additional components of the DataLad ecosystem under this governance umbrella, or whether to remove components that have been covered previously. In addition, the PMC has access to the project’s private communication channels. These are used for sensitive issues, such as votes for new committers and legal matters that cannot be discussed in public. They are never used for project management or planning.
Membership of the PMC is by invitation from the existing PMC members. A nomination will result in discussion and then a vote by the existing PMC members. PMC membership votes are subject to consensus approval of the current PMC members.
PMC Chair
The PMC Chair is a single individual, voted for by the PMC members. Once someone has been appointed Chair, they remain in that role until they choose to retire, or the PMC casts a two-thirds majority vote to remove them.
The PMC Chair has no additional authority over other members of the PMC: the role is one of coordinator and facilitator. The Chair is also expected to ensure that all governance processes are adhered to. If there is no external PMC member that can function as a tie breaker, the Chair has the casting vote when the project fails to reach consensus.
External PMC member
The PMC may have one member who is not a committer. This person shall represent the larger ecosystem and community that DataLad is part of. Membership is by invitation from PMC members, and voted for by PMC members. Membership continues until the person chooses to retire, or the PMC casts a two-thirds majority vote to remove them. The external PMC member does not have a binding vote. However, in case of a tie between choices in the outcome of a vote, the external PMC member is asked to select one of these options as the winner.