Eclipse Standard Top-Level Charter v1.1
This document defines standard terms for Eclipse Top Level Project Charters. It is intended that the Charters for Top Level Projects reference this document rather than inheriting by copy-and-paste.
Overview
To be defined in the individual Top Level Project Charter.
Mission
To be defined in the individual Top Level Project Charter.Scope
To be defined in the individual Top Level Project Charter.Project Management Committee
The Projects under this Charter are managed by a group known as the Project Management Committee (the "PMC"). The PMC's duties are described in "4.6 Leaders" of the Eclipse Development Process.
The work of the PMC is shared by the PMC members. All PMC members are expected to contribute actively. In particular, PMC members are expected to take responsibility for overseeing certain areas of work in the Project, and reporting to the PMC on these areas. Because of the diversity amongst individual projects, PMC members are not expected to maintain anything other than general currency with projects outside their assigned technical areas.
Active participation in the user newsgroups and the appropriate developer mailing lists is a responsibility of all PMC members, and is critical to the success of the Project. PMC members are required to monitor the main Project mailing list, and the developer mailing lists for all Projects and components they are overseeing.
Roles
The Projects under this Charter are operated as meritocracies -- the more you contribute, and the higher the quality of your contribution, the more you are allowed to do. However with this comes increased responsibility.Users
Users are the people who use the output from the Project. Output will typically consist of software in form of extensible frameworks and exemplary tools. Software in this context means intellectual property in electronic form, including source and binary code, documentation, courseware, reports and whitepapers.
Developers
Users who contribute software, documentation, or other materially useful content become developers. Developers are encouraged to participate in the user newsgroup(s), and should monitor the developer mailing list associated with their area of contribution. When appropriate, developers may also contribute to development design discussions related to their area of contribution. Developers are expected to be proactive in reporting problems in the bug tracking system.
Committers
Developers who give frequent and valuable contributions to a Project, or component of a Project (in the case of large Projects), can have their status promoted to that of a "Committer" for that Project or component respectively. See "4.7 Committers and Contributors" of the Eclipse Development Process for the process and responsibilities that entails.
At times, Committers may become inactive for a variety of reasons. The decision making process of the Project relies on active committers who respond to discussions and vote in a constructive and timely manner. The PMC is responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of the Project. A Committer who is disruptive, does not participate actively, or has been inactive for an extended period may have his or her commit status revoked by the PMC.
Active participation in the user newsgroup and the appropriate developer mailing lists is a responsibility of all Committers, and is critical to the success of the Project. Committers are required to monitor and contribute to the user newsgroup.
Committers are required to monitor the mailing lists associated with all Projects and components for which they have commit privileges. This is a condition of being granted commit rights to the Project or component. It is mandatory because committers must participate in votes (which in some cases require a certain minimum number of votes) and must respond to the mailing list in a timely fashion in order to facilitate the smooth operation of the Project. When a Committer is granted commit rights they will be added to the appropriate mailing lists. A Committer must not be unsubscribed from a developer mailing list unless their associated commit privileges are also revoked.
Committers are required to track, participate in, and vote on, relevant discussions in their associated Projects and components. There are three voting responses: +1 (yes), -1 (no, or veto), and 0 (abstain).
Committers are responsible for proactively reporting problems in the bug tracking system, and annotating problem reports with status information, explanations, clarifications, or requests for more information from the submitter. Committers are responsible for updating problem reports when they have done work related to the problem.
Projects
The work under this Top Level Project is further organized into Projects. New Projects must be consistent with the mission of the Top Level Project, be recommended by the PMC, and confirmed by the EMO. Projects can be discontinued by recommendation of the PMC, and confirmed by the EMO.
When a new Project is created, the PMC nominates a Project lead to act as the technical leader and nominates the initial set of Committers for the Project, and these nominations are approved by the EMO. Project leads are accountable to the PMC for the success of their Project.
Project Organization
Given the fluid nature of Eclipse Projects, organizational changes are possible, in particular: dividing a Project into components; dividing a Project into two or more independent Projects; and merging two or more Projects into a single Project. In each case, the initiative for the change may come either from within the Project or from the PMC, but the PMC must approve any change, and approval must be confirmed by the EMO.
If a Project wishes to divide into components, commit privileges are normally granted at the component level, and the committers for a given component vote on issues specific to that component. Components are established and discontinued by the PMC. When the PMC creates a component, it appoints a component lead to act as the technical leader and names the initial set of Committers for the component. The component lead is designated as a committer for the Project and represents the component in discussions and votes pertaining to the Project as a whole. Component committers do not participate in votes at the level of the Project as a whole, unless they are also the component lead.
In cases where new Projects are being created, either by splitting or by merging, the usual procedures as set forth in this Charter are followed. In particular, developers will not necessarily have the same rights after an organizational change that they enjoyed in the previous structure.
Infrastructure
The PMC works with the EMO to ensure the required infrastructure for the Project. The Project infrastructure will include, at minimum:
- Bug Database - Bugzilla database for tracking bugs and feature requests.
- Source Repository -- One or more repositories containing all the software for the Projects.
- Website - A website will contain information about the Project, including documentation, reports and papers, courseware, downloads of releases, and this Charter.
- General Mailing List - Mailing list for discussions pertaining to the Project as a whole or that cross Projects. This mailing list is open to the public.
- Project Mailing Lists - Mailing list for technical discussions related to the Project. This mailing list is open to the public.
- Component Mailing Lists - Mailing list for technical discussions related to the component. This mailing list is open to the public.
- Newsgroups - Newsgroups where users, developers, and committers can interact regarding general questions and issues about the project. The newsgroup is open to the public.
The Development Process
Each Project lead must produce a development plan for the release cycle, and the development plan must be approved by a majority of Committers of the Project. The plan must be submitted to the PMC for review. The PMC may provide feedback and advice on the plan but approval rests with the Project Committers.
Each Project must identify, and make available on its web site, the requirements and prioritizations it is working against in the current release cycle. In addition, each Project must post a release plan showing the date and content of the next major release, including any major milestones, and must keep this plan up to date.
The Committers of a Project or component decide which changes may be committed to the master code base of a Project or component respectively. The PMC defines the decision process, but that process must include the ability for Committers to veto the change. The decision process employed may change with the phase of development. Common decision processes include:
- Retroactive - changes are proactively made by Committers but can be vetoed by a single Committer.
- Proactive - for efficiency, some code changes from some contributors (e.g. feature additions, bug fixes) may be approved in advance, or approved in principle based on an outline of the work, in which case they may be committed first and changed as needed, with conflicts resolved by majority vote of the Committers of the Project or component, as applicable.
- Three Positive - No code is committed without a vote; three +1 ('yes' votes) with no -1 ('no' votes or vetoes) are needed to approve a code change.
Vetoes must be followed by an explanation for the veto within 24 hours or the veto becomes invalid. All votes are conducted via the developer mailing list associated with the Project or component. Special rules may be established by the PMC for Projects or components with fewer than three Committers.
The master copy of the code base must reside on the Project web site where it is accessible to all users, developers and committers. Committers must check their changes and new work into the master code base as promptly as possible (subject to any check-in voting rules that may be in effect) in order to foster collaboration among widely distributed groups and so that the latest work is always available to everyone. The PMC is responsible for working with the Eclipse Foundation to establish a release engineering and build process to ensure that builds can be reliably produced on a regular and frequent basis from the master code base and made available for download from the Project web site. Builds in this context are intended to include not only code but also reports, documentation, and courseware.
Each Project is responsible for establishing test plans and the level of testing appropriate for the Project.
All development technical discussions are conducted using the development mailing lists. If discussions are held offline, then a summary must be posted to the mailing list to keep the other committers, and any other interested parties,
Licensing
All contributions to Projects under this Charter must adhere to the Eclipse Foundation Intellectual Property Policy.