Governance

Current model: Benevolent Dictator for Now (BDfN)

During the design and early build phases, a single maintainer has final decision authority over architecture, merges, releases, and community policy. This model is intentionally lightweight and is not intended to be permanent.

Transition to a steering committee

The BDfN model transitions to a multi-maintainer steering committee when the project reaches three or more regular contributors, where “regular” means someone who has:

  • Landed substantive changes beyond typos or docs in main,
  • Participated in architectural discussions or RFC reviews, and
  • Sustained that activity for at least three months.

When the criteria are met, the maintainer will propose an initial committee, the committee will draft a charter (decision rules, voting, membership, rotation), and this page will be updated to reflect the new model.

Decision-making

Spec changes follow an RFC process. A Request for Comments document records the proposed change, its motivation, and the alternatives considered. RFCs live in docs/rfc/, which holds the document format and numbering.

  • Proposals are filed as GitHub Discussions or draft RFCs in docs/rfc/.
  • Discussion happens in the open, and anyone can participate.
  • Decisions are documented in the relevant RFC or issue with rationale, including the rationale for rejected proposals.
  • After the steering committee is formed, consensus is the preferred mode, and simple-majority voting is the fallback.

License and DCO

  • License. MIT. Contributions are accepted under the same license.
  • Developer Certificate of Origin. Every commit must be signed off with git commit -s. No separate CLA.

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