|
| 1 | +# Governance |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +The Selenium Project wants as much as possible to operate using procedures that |
| 4 | +are fair, open, inviting, and ultimately good for the community. For that reason, |
| 5 | +we find it valuable to codify some of the ways that the Project goes about its |
| 6 | +day-to-day business. We want to make sure that no matter who you are, you have |
| 7 | +the opportunity to contribute to Selenium. We want to make sure that no |
| 8 | +corporation can exert undue influence on the community or hold the Project |
| 9 | +hostage. And likewise, we want to make sure that corporations which benefit |
| 10 | +from Selenium are also incentivized to give back. This document describes how |
| 11 | +various types of contributors work within the Selenium project. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +## Roles and Responsibilities |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +### Users |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +Users are community members who have a need for the project. Anyone can be a |
| 18 | +User; there are no special requirements. Common User contributions include: |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +* Evangelizing the project (e.g., display a link on a website and raise |
| 21 | +awareness through word-of-mouth) |
| 22 | +* Informing strengths and weaknesses from a new user perspective |
| 23 | +(e.g., raising a bug as a GitHub issue, proposing a new feature) |
| 24 | +* Providing moral support (a "thank you" goes a long way) |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +Users who continue to engage with the project and its community will often |
| 27 | +become more and more involved. Such Users may find themselves becoming |
| 28 | +Contributors, as described in the next section. |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +### Contributors |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +Contributors are community members who contribute in concrete ways to the project, |
| 33 | +most often in the form of code and/or documentation. Anyone can become a Contributor, |
| 34 | +and contributions can take many forms, e.g.: |
| 35 | +* Help other users through any of the [communication channels](#communication-channels) |
| 36 | +made for that purpose. |
| 37 | +* Triage GitHub issues. |
| 38 | +* Organize Selenium meetups. |
| 39 | +* Organize and collaborate in Selenium Conferences. |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +There is no expectation of commitment to the project, no specific skill requirements, |
| 42 | +and no selection process. |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +Some Contributors might have some basic privileges to the GitHub repos, based on |
| 45 | +their type of contribution (e.g., close an issue after triaging it). |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +Contributors have read-only access to source code and submit changes via pull |
| 48 | +requests. Contributor pull requests have their contribution reviewed and merged |
| 49 | +by a [Technical Leadership Committee (TLC)](#technical-leadership-committee-tlc) |
| 50 | +member or a Committer. TLC members and Committers work with Contributors |
| 51 | +to review their code and prepare it for merging. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +As Contributors gain experience and familiarity with the project, their profile within, |
| 54 | +and commitment to, the community will increase. At some stage, they may find themselves |
| 55 | +being nominated for the Committer role by an existing Committer or TLC member. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +### Project Committers |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +Committers are community members who have shown that they are committed to the |
| 60 | +continued development of the project through ongoing engagement with the community. |
| 61 | +Committers are given push access to the project's GitHub repos where they |
| 62 | +contribute to. |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +Committers: |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +* Should bring their proposals for large changes to the project's code first to |
| 67 | +a GitHub issue, and all relevant committers should be pinged so they can weigh |
| 68 | +in on the discussion if desired. |
| 69 | +* Debates between committers about whether code should be merged should happen |
| 70 | +in GitHub pull requests to keep the project decision history. |
| 71 | +* In general any committer can review and merge a pull request. Committers |
| 72 | +should only merge code they are qualified to review, which might entail pinging |
| 73 | +another committer who has greater ownership over a specific code area. |
| 74 | +* May label and close issues. |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +#### Becoming a committer |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +* One must have shown a willingness and ability to participate in the project as |
| 79 | +a team player. |
| 80 | +* Committers are expected to be respectful of every community member and to work |
| 81 | +collaboratively in the spirit of inclusion. |
| 82 | +* Have submitted sufficient substantive contributions to one or more of the |
| 83 | +different projects (IDE, Docker-Selenium, Selenium, Site & Docs). For |
| 84 | +technical contributions, enough weight is present and requires little effort to |
| 85 | +accept because it is well documented and tested. Normally 10 substantive |
| 86 | +contributions are needed to qualify as a candidate to be a committer, but there |
| 87 | +could be cases where the contributions are substantial enough that a fewer |
| 88 | +amount is also acceptable. |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +New Committers can be nominated by any existing Committer or TLC member. Once |
| 91 | +they have been nominated, the TLC members will seek a decision based on a |
| 92 | +[Consensus Seeking Process](#consensus-seeking-process). |
| 93 | + |
| 94 | +It is important to recognize that having the Committer role is a privilege, not |
| 95 | +a right. That privilege must be earned and once earned, it can be removed by |
| 96 | +the TLC members by a standard TLC motion. However, under normal circumstances |
| 97 | +the Committer role will exist for as long as the Committer wishes to continue |
| 98 | +engaging with the project. |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +A Committer who shows an above-average level of contribution to the project, |
| 101 | +particularly with respect to its strategic direction and long-term health, may |
| 102 | +be nominated to become a TLC member, described below. |
| 103 | + |
| 104 | +#### Process for Adding Committers |
| 105 | + |
| 106 | +1. Add the GitHub user to relevant GitHub team: |
| 107 | + * `selenium-committers` for the main Selenium repo |
| 108 | + * `selenium-ide` for the Selenium IDE repo |
| 109 | + * `documentation` for the website and documentation repo |
| 110 | + * `docker-owners` for the Docker-Selenium repo |
| 111 | +1. Invite to Slack team chat room (`selenium-committers`) |
| 112 | +1. Tweet congratulations to the new committer from the SeleniumHQ Twitter account |
| 113 | + |
| 114 | +The current Committers are (divided by repo): |
| 115 | + |
| 116 | +Selenium IDE: |
| 117 | +* [@corevo](https://github.com/corevo) |
| 118 | +* [@manoj9788](https://github.com/manoj9788) |
| 119 | +* [@shs96c](https://github.com/shs96c) |
| 120 | + |
| 121 | +Selenium: |
| 122 | +* [@adamgoucher](https://github.com/adamgoucher) |
| 123 | +* [@andreastt](https://github.com/andreastt) |
| 124 | +* [@AutomatedTester](https://github.com/AutomatedTester) |
| 125 | +* [@barancev](https://github.com/barancev) |
| 126 | +* [@cgoldberg](https://github.com/cgoldberg) |
| 127 | +* [@corevo](https://github.com/corevo) |
| 128 | +* [@davehunt](https://github.com/davehunt) |
| 129 | +* [@ddavison](https://github.com/ddavison) |
| 130 | +* [@dfabulich](https://github.com/dfabulich) |
| 131 | +* [@diemol](https://github.com/diemol) |
| 132 | +* [@DominikDary](https://github.com/DominikDary) |
| 133 | +* [@freynaud](https://github.com/freynaud) |
| 134 | +* [@illicitonion](https://github.com/illicitonion) |
| 135 | +* [@jarib](https://github.com/jarib) |
| 136 | +* [@jimevans](https://github.com/jimevans) |
| 137 | +* [@jleyba](https://github.com/jleyba) |
| 138 | +* [@jlipps](https://github.com/jlipps) |
| 139 | +* [@joshbruning](https://github.com/joshbruning) |
| 140 | +* [@juangj](https://github.com/juangj) |
| 141 | +* [@julianharty](https://github.com/julianharty) |
| 142 | +* [@krosenvold](https://github.com/krosenvold) |
| 143 | +* [@lmtierney](https://github.com/lmtierney) |
| 144 | +* [@lukeis](https://github.com/lukeis) |
| 145 | +* [@mach6](https://github.com/mach6) |
| 146 | +* [@mtscout6](https://github.com/mtscout6) |
| 147 | +* [@nirvdrum](https://github.com/nirvdrum) |
| 148 | +* [@p0deje](https://github.com/p0deje) |
| 149 | +* [@santiycr](https://github.com/santiycr) |
| 150 | +* [@sevaseva](https://github.com/sevaseva) |
| 151 | +* [@shs96c](https://github.com/shs96c) |
| 152 | +* [@titusfortner](https://github.com/titusfortner) |
| 153 | +* [@tourdedavetner](https://github.com/tourdedave) |
| 154 | +* [@twalpole](https://github.com/twalpole) |
| 155 | + |
| 156 | +Selenium Site & Docs: |
| 157 | +* [@ahunsberger](https://github.com/ahunsberger) |
| 158 | +* [@ddavison](https://github.com/ddavison) |
| 159 | +* [@diemol](https://github.com/diemol) |
| 160 | +* [@lukeis](https://github.com/lukeis) |
| 161 | +* [@manoj9788](https://github.com/manoj9788) |
| 162 | + |
| 163 | +Docker-Selenium: |
| 164 | +* [@ddavison](https://github.com/ddavison) |
| 165 | +* [@diemol](https://github.com/diemol) |
| 166 | +* [@elgalu](https://github.com/elgalu) |
| 167 | +* [@kayabendroth](https://github.com/kayabendroth) |
| 168 | +* [@mtscout6](https://github.com/mtscout6) |
| 169 | +* [@WillAbides](https://github.com/WillAbides) |
| 170 | + |
| 171 | +### Technical Leadership Committee (TLC) |
| 172 | + |
| 173 | +The technical decisions and roadmap of the Selenium project are governed by |
| 174 | +a Technical Leadership Committee (TLC) which is responsible for a high-level |
| 175 | +technical guidance of the project. |
| 176 | + |
| 177 | +The TLC has final authority over this project including: |
| 178 | + |
| 179 | +* Technical direction |
| 180 | +* Repository hosting |
| 181 | +* Contribution policy (shared with the [Project Leadership Committee (PLC)](#project-leadership-committee-plc)) |
| 182 | + |
| 183 | +TLC seats are not time-limited. There is no fixed size of the TLC. The TLC |
| 184 | +should be of such a size as to ensure adequate coverage of important areas |
| 185 | +of expertise balanced with the ability to make decisions efficiently. |
| 186 | + |
| 187 | +The TLC may add additional members to the TLC by a standard TLC motion. |
| 188 | + |
| 189 | +A TLC member may be removed from the TLC by voluntary resignation, or by a |
| 190 | +standard TLC or PLC motion. |
| 191 | + |
| 192 | +No more than 1/3 of the TLC members may be affiliated with the same employer. |
| 193 | +If removal or resignation of a TLC member, or a change of employment by a TLC |
| 194 | +member, creates a situation where more than 1/3 of the TLC membership shares an |
| 195 | +employer, then the situation must be immediately remedied by the resignation or |
| 196 | +removal of one or more TLC members affiliated with the over-represented employer(s). |
| 197 | + |
| 198 | +TLC members have additional responsibilities over and above those of a Committer. |
| 199 | +These responsibilities ensure the project has a technical viability and sustainability |
| 200 | +in a smooth way. TLC members are expected to review code contributions, approve |
| 201 | +changes to this document, and manage the copyrights within the project outputs. |
| 202 | + |
| 203 | +TLC members fulfill all requirements of Committers, and also: |
| 204 | + |
| 205 | +* May merge pull requests for accepted issues upon reviewing and approving |
| 206 | +the changes without the need to ping other committers who might have greater ownership |
| 207 | +over the affected code area, given that reviewing and accepting the pull request |
| 208 | +does not require deep knowledge in the affected code area. |
| 209 | +* Push code directly to the repos or, when necessary, create and merge their own pull |
| 210 | +requests once they have collected the feedback they deem necessary. |
| 211 | +* Discuss once a month the technical status and project roadmap. |
| 212 | + |
| 213 | +To become a TLC member: |
| 214 | + |
| 215 | +* Work in a helpful and collaborative way with the community. |
| 216 | +* Have given good feedback on others' submissions and displayed an overall understanding |
| 217 | +of the code quality standards for the project. |
| 218 | +* Commit to being a part of the community for the long-term. |
| 219 | +* Have submitted a minimum of 20 substantive pull requests or pushed a minimum of 20 |
| 220 | + substantive commits across the different projects (IDE, Docker-Selenium, Selenium, Site & Docs). |
| 221 | + |
| 222 | +A Committer is invited to become a TLC member by existing TLC members. A nomination |
| 223 | +will result in discussion and then a decision by the TLC. |
| 224 | + |
| 225 | +#### Process for Adding TLC Members |
| 226 | + |
| 227 | +1. Add the GitHub user to the `Selenium TLC` team |
| 228 | +1. Set the GitHub user to have the "Owner" role for the SeleniumHQ organization |
| 229 | +1. Invite to the Slack TLC chat room (`selenium-tlc`) |
| 230 | +1. Add the TLC member to the different package distribution organizations |
| 231 | + * NPM |
| 232 | + * SonarType (maven) |
| 233 | + * pypi.org |
| 234 | + * rubygems.org |
| 235 | + * nuget.org |
| 236 | +1. Tweet congratulations to the new TLC member from the SeleniumHQ Twitter account |
| 237 | + |
| 238 | +The current TLC members are: |
| 239 | + |
| 240 | +* [@barancev](https://github.com/barancev) |
| 241 | +* [@jimevans](https://github.com/jimevans) |
| 242 | +* [@shs96c](https://github.com/shs96c) |
| 243 | +* [@titusfortner](https://github.com/titusfortner) |
| 244 | +* [@automatedtester](https://github.com/automatedtester) |
| 245 | +* [@diemol](https://github.com/diemol) |
| 246 | +* [@tourdedave](https://github.com/tourdedave) |
| 247 | + |
| 248 | +### Project Leadership Committee (PLC) |
| 249 | + |
| 250 | +The overall continuity and future of the project is overseen by the Project |
| 251 | +Leadership Committee (PLC), which acts as a bridge between the Selenium project |
| 252 | +and the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC). |
| 253 | + |
| 254 | +Since there are many different facets to the Selenium project, the PLC wants to |
| 255 | +reflect more than just people who sling code about. The PLC gets involved in |
| 256 | +different ways, such as whenever the project spends money, enters legal agreements, |
| 257 | +or has to deal with lawyers. Typically the PLC will discuss the topic with the rest |
| 258 | +of the community, and then a voting session will take place. |
| 259 | + |
| 260 | +PLC seats are not time-limited. Only one person on the PLC may be affiliated with |
| 261 | +any given employer at a time. The PLC member count should be always |
| 262 | +odd so that no votes are ever tied, an ideal minimum number is 5. PLC members |
| 263 | +should also be active members of the community. |
| 264 | + |
| 265 | +To become a PLC member: |
| 266 | + |
| 267 | +* An existing PLC member steps down and suggests someone (or some people) to replace them. |
| 268 | +* Be a committer or a contributor. |
| 269 | +* Commit to being a part of the community for the long-term. |
| 270 | +* The existing PLC consults with the TLC and the active Committers, who will seek a decision |
| 271 | +based on a [Consensus Seeking Process](#consensus-seeking-process) to add or not those people. |
| 272 | + * No-one is ever suggested publicly without first discussing the idea with |
| 273 | + them first (to make sure that they are okay with it). |
| 274 | + |
| 275 | + |
| 276 | +The PLC has final authority over this project including: |
| 277 | + |
| 278 | +* Project governance and process (including this policy). |
| 279 | +* Contribution policy (shared with the TLC). |
| 280 | +* Budget and legal related issues. |
| 281 | + |
| 282 | +The PLC also should discuss once a month the overall status of the project and any pending or |
| 283 | +upcoming topics. |
| 284 | + |
| 285 | +A PLC member may be removed from the PLC by voluntary resignation, or by a |
| 286 | +standard PLC motion. |
| 287 | + |
| 288 | +#### Process for Adding PLC Members |
| 289 | + |
| 290 | +1. Invite to the Slack PLC chat room (`selenium-plc`) |
| 291 | +1. Tweet congratulations to the new PLC member from the SeleniumHQ Twitter account |
| 292 | + |
| 293 | +The current PLC members are: |
| 294 | + |
| 295 | +* [@barancev](https://github.com/barancev) |
| 296 | +* [@jimevans](https://github.com/jimevans) |
| 297 | +* [@manoj9788](https://github.com/manoj9788) |
| 298 | +* [@shs96c](https://github.com/shs96c) |
| 299 | +* [@mmerrell](https://github.com/mmerrell) |
| 300 | + |
| 301 | + |
| 302 | +## Communication Channels |
| 303 | + |
| 304 | +The project maintains various channels for providing information, supporting development |
| 305 | +and enabling communication between team members. Adherence to the project's |
| 306 | +[Code of Conduct](/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) is strictly mandatory for all types of communication |
| 307 | +in these channels. |
| 308 | + |
| 309 | +- Twitter Account ([`@seleniumhq`](https://twitter.com/seleniumhq)): for communicating |
| 310 | +and promoting news around the project or project related topics. |
| 311 | +- [Chat Room](https://webchat.freenode.net/#selenium): chat for all Selenium users to seek |
| 312 | +help and support on problems using the project. |
| 313 | +- [Slack](https://seleniumhq.slack.com/join/shared_invite/enQtODAwOTUzOTM5OTEwLTZjZjgzN2ExOTBmZGE0NjkwYzA2Nzc0MjczMGYwYjdiNGQ5YjI0ZjdjYjFhMjVlMjFkZWJmNDYyMmU1OTYyM2Y): |
| 314 | +mirrors the IRC Chat room and is also used by all Selenium users to seek help and support |
| 315 | +on problems using the project. |
| 316 | +- Project Committers Channel, `selenium-committers` in the Slack channel mentioned above: |
| 317 | +private channel for members of the Project Committers team to discuss contributions and |
| 318 | +organise other collaborative efforts. |
| 319 | +- TLC Channel, `selenium-tlc` in the Slack channel mentioned above: |
| 320 | +private channel for TLC members to discuss technical planning and technical project roadmap. |
| 321 | +- PLC Channel, `selenium-plc` in the Slack channel mentioned above: |
| 322 | +private channel for PLC members to overall project planning, roadmap and related issues. |
| 323 | + |
| 324 | +## Consensus Seeking Process |
| 325 | + |
| 326 | +The PLC and TLC follow a [Consensus Seeking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus-seeking_decision-making) |
| 327 | +decision making model. |
| 328 | + |
| 329 | +When an agenda item has appeared to reach a consensus, the moderator will ask |
| 330 | +"Does anyone object?" as a final call for dissent from the consensus. |
| 331 | + |
| 332 | +If an agenda item cannot reach a consensus, a PLC/TLC member can call for either |
| 333 | +a closing vote or a vote to postpone further discussion on the issue until the next |
| 334 | +meeting. The call for a vote must be approved by a majority of the TSC or else the |
| 335 | +discussion will continue. Simple majority wins. |
| 336 | + |
| 337 | +## Sponsorship |
| 338 | + |
| 339 | +The Selenium project is a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a 501(c)3 non-profit |
| 340 | +organization. The Conservancy has allowed us to pool organizational resources with other |
| 341 | +projects, such as Inkscape, Samba, and Wine, in order to reduce the management overhead |
| 342 | +associated with creating our own, dedicated legal entity. |
| 343 | + |
| 344 | +Please see more details at https://selenium.dev/sponsor/ |
| 345 | + |
| 346 | +## Commercial and Community Driven Projects |
| 347 | + |
| 348 | +The wide use of the tools provided by the Selenium project has created a large offer of |
| 349 | +commercial services and open source/community driven projects. The Selenium project |
| 350 | +enables and encourages anyone to start any type of project or service that has as its |
| 351 | +objective to simplify and spread the use of Selenium across the community. |
| 352 | + |
| 353 | +Nevertheless, due to its open source, community and non-profit origin, the Selenium |
| 354 | +project will only mention on its website projects of the same nature based on Selenium |
| 355 | +or WebDriver, except on the sponsors page. If a commercial tool or project wants to be mentioned in the Selenium website, |
| 356 | +please see the [Sponsorship](#sponsorship) section of this document. |
| 357 | + |
| 358 | + |
| 359 | +## Raising Issues Related to Governance |
| 360 | + |
| 361 | +This governance model necessarily leaves many situations unspecified. If questions arise |
| 362 | +as to how a given situation should proceed according to the overall goals of the project, |
| 363 | +the best thing to do is to open a GitHub issue and ping the PLC/TLC members. |
| 364 | + |
| 365 | +---- |
| 366 | + |
| 367 | +This work is a derivative of the [ESLint Project Governance Model](https://github.com/eslint/eslint/blob/master/docs/maintainer-guide/governance.md). |
| 368 | + |
| 369 | +This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/). |
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