Community Governance Discussion at March 2013 Partners Meeting

Owned by Bill Branan
Jun 16, 2017
2 min read

A healthy, strong and vibrant project relies on partners; much of the original project role documentation lays out explicit responsibilities for Steering, but under-represents both the theoretical and actual contributions of Partners. The current (March 2013) community structure page lays out these responsibilties: 

Partners

  • Hydra head development
  • Code contribution to the “core”
  • Maintenance of previously contributed code
  • Design contribution: UI's, API's, data models, et al. 
  • Documentation and sharing of contributions
  • Resource coordination
  • Recruiting
  • Evangelism

 

Steering

  • 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

The items in italics (and maybe more) are obvious contenders for adding to the Partners' list of shared responsibilities. Ultimately, this help clarify the Steering Group's role as an administrative center and a steward of the project, responsible for helping create the structures to see that critical tasks are addressed, and backstopping the partners group in case it doesn't fulfill these tasks. Essentially then...

  • creating decision making structures
  • decision making when decisions are not otherwise being made
  • backstopping partners when issues go unaddressed
  • delicate issues handling
  • stewards and caretakers of the project as a whole
  • responsible for providing continuity of the project

Strategic planning is not currently on any list of responsibilities (though it may be implied by "collaborative roadmapping"). This should be rectified. 

Documentation & training need to be on the lists of responsibilities. Needs to be added.

Vendor ecosystem management is not on any list of responsibilities. Needs to be added.

Resolving legal issues. 

The project's founding MOU gives a slightly different set of responsibilities for Steering than the wiki (above): 

  • Appoint individuals who have institutional authority to act on behalf of that member institution/entity

  • Collaboratively roadmap the project’s technology & community development

  • Coordinate resources

  • Provide governance of the “technology core”

  • Decide what becomes official Hydra components

  • Help maintain official Hydra components

  • Manage the licensing of Hydra code components

  • Maintain and grow the community

  • Serve as evangelists & seed / support the development of "User Groups"

  • Maintain the official Hydra website (but Steering accountable for ultimate quality)

  • Provision and support the project infrastructure  (but Steering accountable for ultimate quality)

  • Organize and plan Hydra meetings (but Steering accountable for ultimate quality)

  • Update the governance structure of the project

  • Formally admit new Hydra Partners

  • Formally accept new Steering Group members

  • Manage the Hydra brand and official project communications

  • Formally represent the Hydra Project to funding agencies and (possible) commercial partners


Again, the items in italics (and possibly more) should be considered for updating the project members' roles.