There has been discussion about storm graduating to a top level apache
project in the relatively near future. This is great, but I think it would
be good to officially adopt a set of bylaws about how the project is
governed. I would prefer to not change anything initially with how the
project actually is governed, but mostly just formalize them in an official
document. If others feel things need to be changed, I would prefer to have
those be separate discussions/votes assuming that what I have written up is
not fatally flawed. As such I have written up the following based off of
the bylaws of several other Apache projects. Which for the most part were
very similar, please let me know to fix any references to Cloud Stack,
Kafka, Hadoop, and Hive in here, I copied and pasted a lot.
A few important to note in the section on electing the PMC chair, most
bylaws use lazy consensus but I followed the Hadoop model because lazy
consensus really only works for yes/no questions. I also kept the annual
rotation of the chair, but if others disagree I am fine with dropping it
and putting it up for a separate discussion. Also please pay close
attention to the different voting methods for different actions. Different
groups each had different requirements. I put in some that I thought would
be good, but I am very open to changing them. The only one that had been
discussed before was for a code change, so that one I would like to stay
the same for now.
# Storm By-laws (Draft)
## Roles and Responsibilities
Apache projects define a set of roles with associated rights and
responsibilities. These roles govern what tasks an individual may perform
within the project. The roles are defined in the following sections
### Users:
The most important participants in the project are people who use our
software. The majority of our developers start out as users and guide their
development efforts from the user's perspective.
Users contribute to the Apache projects by providing feedback to
developers in the form of bug reports and feature suggestions. As well,
users participate in the Apache community by helping other users on mailing
lists and user support forums.
### Contributors:
All of the volunteers who are contributing time, code, documentation,
or resources to the Storm Project. A contributor that makes sustained,
welcome contributions to the project may be invited to become a Committer,
though the exact timing of such invitations depends on many factors.
### Committers:
The project's Committers are responsible for the project's technical
management. Committers have access to all project source repositories.
Committers may cast binding votes on any technical discussion regarding
storm.
Committer access is by invitation only and must be approved by lazy
consensus of the active PMC members. A Committer is considered emeritus by
their own declaration or by not contributing in any form to the project for
over six months. An emeritus committer may request reinstatement of commit
access from the PMC. Such reinstatement is subject to lazy consensus
approval of active PMC members.
All Apache committers are required to have a signed Contributor License
Agreement (CLA) on file with the Apache Software Foundation. There is a
Committer FAQ which provides more details on the requirements for Committers
A committer who makes a sustained contribution to the project may be
invited to become a member of the PMC. The form of contribution is not
limited to code. It can also include code review, helping out users on the
mailing lists, documentation, testing, etc.
### Project Management Committee(PMC):
The PMC is responsible to the board and the ASF for the management and
oversight of the Apache Storm codebase. The responsibilities of the PMC
include
Deciding what is distributed as products of the Apache Storm
project. In particular all releases must be approved by the PMC.
Maintaining the project's shared resources, including the codebase
repository, mailing lists, websites.
Speaking on behalf of the project.
Resolving license disputes regarding products of the project.
Nominating new PMC members and committers.
Maintaining these bylaws and other guidelines of the project.
Membership of the PMC is by invitation only and must be approved by a
consensus approval of active PMC members. A PMC member is considered
"emeritus" by their own declaration or by not contributing in any form to
the project for over six months. An emeritus member may request
reinstatement to the PMC. Such reinstatement is subject to consensus
approval of the active PMC members.
The chair of the PMC is appointed by the ASF board. The chair is an
office holder of the Apache Software Foundation (Vice President, Apache
Storm) and has primary responsibility to the board for the management of
the projects within the scope of the Storm PMC. The chair reports to the
board quarterly on developments within the Storm project.
The chair of the PMC is rotated annually. When the chair is rotated or
if the current chair of the PMC resigns, the PMC votes to recommend a new
chair using Single Transferable Vote (STV) voting. See
http://wiki.apache.org/general/BoardVoting for specifics. The decision must
be ratified by the Apache board.
## Voting
Decisions regarding the project are made by votes on the primary
project development mailing list ([email protected]). Where
necessary, PMC voting may take place on the private Storm PMC mailing list.
Votes are clearly indicated by subject line starting with [VOTE]. Votes may
contain multiple items for approval and these should be clearly separated.
Voting is carried out by replying to the vote mail. Voting may take four
flavors
Vote
Meaning
+1
'Yes,' 'Agree,' or 'the action should be performed.'
+0
Neutral about the proposed action (or mildly negative but not enough so
to want to block it).
-1
This is a negative vote. On issues where consensus is required, this
vote counts as a veto. All vetoes must contain an explanation of why the
veto is appropriate. Vetoes with no explanation are void. It may also be
appropriate for a -1 vote to include an alternative course of action.
All participants in the Storm project are encouraged to show their
agreement with or against a particular action by voting. For technical
decisions, only the votes of active committers are binding. Non-binding
votes are still useful for those with binding votes to understand the
perception of an action in the wider Storm community. For PMC decisions,
only the votes of active PMC members are binding.
Voting can also be applied to changes already made to the Storm
codebase. These typically take the form of a veto (-1) in reply to the
commit message sent when the commit is made. Note that this should be a
rare occurrence. All efforts should be made to discuss issues when they are
still patches before the code is committed.
Only active (i.e. non-emeritus) committers and PMC members have binding
votes.
## Approvals
These are the types of approvals that can be sought. Different actions
require different types of approvals
Consensus Approval - Consensus approval requires 3 binding +1 votes and
no binding vetoes.
Lazy Consensus - Lazy consensus requires no -1 votes ('silence gives
assent').
Lazy Majority - A lazy majority vote requires 3 binding +1 votes and
more binding +1 votes than -1 votes.
Lazy 2/3 Majority - Lazy 2/3 majority votes requires at least 3 votes
and twice as many +1 votes as -1 votes.
### Vetoes
A valid, binding veto cannot be overruled. If a veto is cast, it must
be accompanied by a valid reason explaining the reasons for the veto. The
validity of a veto, if challenged, can be confirmed by anyone who has a
binding vote. This does not necessarily signify agreement with the veto -
merely that the veto is valid.
If you disagree with a valid veto, you must lobby the person casting
the veto to withdraw their veto. If a veto is not withdrawn, any action
that has been vetoed must be reversed in a timely manner.
## Actions
This section describes the various actions which are undertaken within
the project, the corresponding approval required for that action and those
who have binding votes over the action.
| Actions | Description | Approval | Binding Votes | Minimum Length |
Mailing List |
|---------|-------------|----------|---------------|----------------|--------------|
| Code Change | A change made to a codebase of the project and
committed by a committer. This includes source code, documentation, website
content, etc. | Two +1s from committers (at least one from someone who has
not authored the patch). | Active committers | 2 days from initial patch
|JIRA or Github pull ( with notification sent to
[email protected]) |
| Release Plan | Defines the timetable and actions for a release. The
plan also nominates a Release Manager. | Lazy majority | Active committers
| 3 days | [email protected] |
| Product Release | When a release of one of the project's products is
ready, a vote is required to accept the release as an official release of
the project. | Lazy Majority | Active PMC members | 3 days |
[email protected] |
| Adoption of New Codebase | When the codebase for an existing,
released product is to be replaced with an alternative codebase. If such a
vote fails to gain approval, the existing code base will continue. This
also covers the creation of new sub-projects and submodules within the
project. | Lazy 2/3 majority | Active PMC members | 7 days |
[email protected] |
| New Committer | When a new committer is proposed for the project. |
Lazy consensus | Active PMC members | 7 days |
[email protected] |
| New PMC Member | When a committer is proposed for the PMC. |
Consensus Approval | Active PMC members | 7 days |
[email protected] |
| Emeritus PMC Member re-instatement | When an emeritus PMC member
requests to be re-instated as an active PMC member. | Consensus Approval |
Active PMC members | 7 days | [email protected] |
| Emeritus Committer re-instatement | When an emeritus committer
requests to be re-instated as an active committer. | Consensus Approval |
Active PMC members | 7 days | [email protected] |
| Committer Removal | When removal of commit privileges is sought.
Note: Such actions will also be referred to the ASF board by the PMC chair.
| Consensus Approval | Active PMC members (excluding the committer in
question if a member of the PMC). | 7 Days |
[email protected] |
| PMC Member Removal | When removal of a PMC member is sought. Note:
Such actions will also be referred to the ASF board by the PMC chair. |
Consensus Approval | Active PMC members (excluding the member in question).
| 7 Days | [email protected] |
| Modifying Bylaws | Modifying this document. | Lazy 2/3 majority |
Active PMC members | 7 Days | [email protected] |
