Hydra Community Structure & Governing Bodies

Owned by Bill Branan
Jun 16, 2017
3 min read

What is the Hydra community? What makes you a part of the Hydra community? How are decisions made?

This page was produced as part of the February 2011 Steering Group discussions at Charlottesville, and ratified in a follow up call in March. See and maintain Hydra community framework for the polished version of this framework.

Hydra Adopters

Anyone can download and run Hydra software.  Anyone can extend and modify software provided by Hydra.  If you use the software, you’re an adopter.

Hydra Partners

Hydra Partners are individuals, institutions, corporations or other groups that have committed to contributing to the Hydra community; they not only use the Hydra technical framework, but also add to it in at least one of many ways: code, analysis, design, support, funding, or other resources. Hydra Partners collectively advance the project and the community for the benefit of all participants.

Partners get to attend Hydra Partner meetings, provide input on the community and technical direction, and represent Hydra to the broader community.

What are the responsibilities of Hydra partners? Any or all of the following:

  • Hydra head development
  • Code contribution to the “core”
  • Maintenance of previously contributed code
  • Design contribution
  • Documentation and sharing of contributions
  • Resource coordination
  • Recruiting
  • Evangelism

How do you become a Hydra partner? The steps are:

  1. be nominated by an existing partner, and
  2. be voted in by a majority of all current partners, and
  3. get invited.

How do you stop being a Hydra partner?

  • get voted out by a majority of all current partners

Coordinating Groups and Governing Bodies

Three groups address responsibilities that span across institutions and Hydra heads.

Hydra Steering Group

The Hydra Steering Group is a small coordinating body that steers the technical and community development of Hydra. Its members have demonstrated a significant commitment and made corresponding investments in the success and growth of Hydra not only for themselves, but as a collaboration and vital open source effort.

What are the responsibilities of Hydra steering group members?

  • Collaborative roadmapping (tech & community)
  • Resource coordination
  • Governance of the “tech core”
  • Decide what becomes official Hydra components
  • Help maintain official Hydra components
  • Community Maintenance & Growth
  • Evangelism & "User Groups"
  • Maintain the official Hydra website
  • Project infrastructure provisioning & support (JIRA, Hudson/Jenkins, Web site)
  • Meeting organization & planning
  • Hydra brand management

How do you become a member of the Hydra Steering Group?
Hydra Partners that have demonstrated commitment to Hydra, made significant investments in the community and effort, and that would make positive contributions to the Steering Group are eligible to be nominated.

Steering Group Members must...

  • be nominated by an existing Steering Group Member, and
  • be voted in by a majority of all Steering Group Members, and then
  • get invited.

Hydra Design Group

How do you become a member of the Hydra design group?

  • Become a Hydra Partner & commit resources to the group.
  • Commit designs (writ large) to the project, and resources to the group and project design process.

What are the responsibilities of Hydra design group members?

  • Define Functional Objectives & supporting, high-level technical objectives
  • (Shape and) Fund work
  • Define conceptual models
  • Define Data Models & Content Models, providing samples
  • Provide Sample Data
  • Share design patterns & Management techniques
  • UI Design & Spec
  • End-user Documentation
  • End-user Training
  • Maintain consistency of User Experience
  • Quality Assurance

Hydra Developers Group

How do you become a member of the Hydra developers group?

  • Commit code to the project, and resources to the group and technical development process.

What are the responsibilities of Hydra developers group members?

  • Define Technical Architecture
  • Coordinate development of common functionality
  • Implement Data & Content Models
  • Define & Enforce Development Practices
  • Code Development
  • Integration & Release
  • Developer & Deployment Documentation
  • Developer & Sys Admin Training

Common Responsibilities

  • Documentation
  • Ensure Strength of Community

Smoothing Communication across developers and design groups:

Need to be able to hand over Samples/Fixtures (tooling would be great!)

  • OM
  • Data Models