On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 19:26, Glen Fernandes via Boost
The Software Freedom Conservancy never governed the Boost C++ Libraries, nor did the Boost Steering committee, nor does the Boost Foundation. Only the Boost community does that.
[...] any decision making and governance of the Boost libraries is still the domain of the Boost community (i.e. you, me, and the other Boost library authors and maintainers).
I learned about this from the political discourse here around the advent of the CMake for Boost and I've never since clarified it (to myself) how it's supposed to work. If I want to contribute to a FOSS project, then I head to its repository and learn the way from the README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md and documentation (in that order usually). If I want to submit a Boost-wide proposal, e.g.. pay for CI, I have no idea what is the path I am supposed to walk. Let's suppose, hypothetically, there was a mechanism that: 1. captures the current state of the project and the community affairs without excessive intrusion or any stir-up, hopefully. 2. is simple to implement and document 3. is effective for collective decision making Let's suppose, hypothetically, the capturing part means labelling to distinguish already existing roles: - Boost Community Participant - an every named or anonymous individual who participates in activities of the Boost project. - Boost Community Member - every fully named non-anonymous individual who participates in activities of the Boost project. - Boost Charter Member - every fully named individual who is either an original author or currently active maintainer of a Boost library. Such person is automatically considered a core contributor to the Boost project and is entitled to vote for motions put forward to the Boost project. Then, the implementation could be described quite clearly: - We do not have a hierarchical structure. - Every strategic decisions regarding the Boost project, decisions that cannot be decided by consensus, decisions that might be controversial are brought to a vote. - Only named Members or Charter Members can put motions forward to the Boost organization for voting. - Only Charter Members can vote for proposals acting as individuals according to their individual point-of-view, wearing their personal hat for the best interest of the Boost. - The Voting Wizard is an admin role to coordinate the voting, namely, 1) validates the proposal; 2) puts it for two weeks review period; 3) announces start/end of voting; 4) counts total of votes and validates votes against the latest list of names in `authors` and `maintainers` fields of `meta/libraries.json`. Statistically, 100% participation rate means total of votes == total of names in meta/libraries.json. Then, I think, the collective decision making in Boost might become clear for everyone, regardless of their seniority and experience within the community, almost a no-brainer ;) Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net