feb 2017 - symphony software foundation governance primer

Symphony Software Foundation Confidential Member Access Only

SSF Governance Primer

Symphony Software Foundation Confidential - Member Access Only

2SSF Governance Bodies


3

Members—elect board of directors & some ESCo members

Board of Directors—sets strategic direction, approves budget, oversees ESCo

Engineering Steering Committee (ESCo)—directs Symphony open source platform development, sets technical standards & policy, oversees projects & working groups

Working Groups—explore & make recommendations on technical and industry issues

Projects—develop & maintain Foundation software projects

SSF Governing Bodies


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• Set policies, criteria, benefits, and fees for membership

• Set policies for Member participation in Symphony Open Source Project, including testing/acceptance criteria, product roadmaps, and release schedules.

• Establish & delegate to Committees

• Set policies, procedures, and standards for ESCo

• Appoint two ESCo members

• Amend or reverse actions by ESCo

• Change structure/composition of Board, ESCo, and Membership

Board of Directors


5Board Composition

Category Process

Platinum Directors Up to 17 directors, each appointed by a Platinum Member

Gold Directors Up to 5 directors, elected by the Gold Members voting as a class

Silver Director 1 director, elected by the Silver Members voting as a class (once 10 Silver Members have joined SSF)

Symphony LLC Directors 3 directors, appointed by Symphony LLC

ED Director The Executive Director of SSF


6

• Maintain & manage Symphony open source platform

• Manage overall technical quality of SSF project portfolio

• Approve new Working Groups & Projects

• Align projects & working groups; settle technical disputes

• Review and provide feedback on WG and Project team status reports

• Report to board on WG and Project progress

• Appoint three ESCo Advisors

Engineering Steering Committee (ESCo)


7ESCo Composition

Category Process

Symphony LLC Lead 1 member, appointed by Symphony LLC

Board Leads 2 members, appointed by the board

Member Leads 2 members, appointed by the members (voting as a class)

ESCo AdvisorsUp to 7 advisory members: 3 appointed by the ESCo members; 1 each elected by the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and At-Large Members respectively


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• Develop recommendations to ESCo on technical & industry issues

• Prepare best practice guides, roadmap recommendations for Project Teams, and position papers relevant to charter

• Coordinate with projects to implement recommendations

• Report to ESCo quarterly on progress

• Appoint chair & co-chair to manage activity and liase with ESCo & members

Working Groups


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• Establish project roadmap, manage project day-to-day

• Approve contributions and manage committers

• Develop, test, approve, and publish new features and releases

• Report periodically to ESCo on progress & metrics

• Appoint Project Lead

• Liaise with ESCo and Members

• Liaise as needed with Working Groups to align to recommendations

Project Teams


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• Platinum: each appoints one director

• Gold: nominate and vote for 5 Gold Directors

• Silver: nominate and vote for 1 Silver Director

• Platinum, Gold, and Silver (as a class): elect two ESCo members

• Every class: nominate and vote for one ESCo Advisor to represent class

• Propose & participate in Working Groups & Projects

Members


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• Onboard new Members and grow the Community

• Support work of ESCo, Working Groups, and Project Teams

• Develop, measure, and refine processes for governing bodies’ activity and coordination

• Manage community policies and processes, e.g. resolve Code of Conduct violations

• Promote awareness of the Foundation and industry engagement

Foundation Staff


Project Governance


13Project Governance Roles Role Access/Responsibilities

Project Team (Committers) Write access to code, approve project contributions (e.g. via pull requests), manage open source project releases

Contributors Raise issues (e.g. features & bugs), submit patches to resolve issues via pull requests, potentially become committers through active participation

Community Read access to code (under Apache License), access to public mailing lists,propose new contributions

ESCo Approve new projects and their initial committers, align and resolve conflicts between projects, promote projects through lifecycle states, archive inactive projects, monitor project activity and liveliness

Working Groups Work at design/standardization level, identify common requirements for new projects


14Legal Matters

Contributions are licensed to the Foundation

Copyright is retained by the contributor

Contributions, including dependencies, must meet license criteria

Contributions are licensed outbound with Apache License, Version 2.0

©


15Project Lifecycle

Actively developed

but at early stage of

maturity in terms of

process and

releases.

The project is

mature and stable.

Transition to this

state required

Board approval.

The project is

mature but not

actively developed.

Still receives

bug-fixes and

security updates.

The project is no

longer maintained.

Code is read only.

Not recommended

for production use.

The Engineering Steering Committee (ESCo) approves

transitions between states, unless otherwise noted.


Thanks!

feb 2017 - symphony software foundation governance primer

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