charter #8114

macfarla · 2025-01-13T22:29:08Z

PR description

This PR proposes the addition of a Besu charter. Please add your feedback, questions etc in the form of comments on this PR.

Charter text originates from https://github.com/besu-eth/governance/blob/main/Besu%20Technical%20Charter.md however that charter is proposed for removal in this PR besu-eth/governance#7 since it was added without consultation with Besu maintainers.

Note this is a re-draft of #7128

This has come up again for discussion as part of move from Hyperledger to LFDT, and the relocation of this repo from hyperledger github org.

For context, as a LFDT project, Besu is already subject to the LFDT charter https://www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org/about/charter

Fixed Issue(s)

Thanks for sending a pull request! Have you done the following?

Checked out our contribution guidelines?
Considered documentation and added the doc-change-required label to this PR if updates are required.
Considered the changelog and included an update if required.
For database changes (e.g. KeyValueSegmentIdentifier) considered compatibility and performed forwards and backwards compatibility tests

Locally, you can run these tests to catch failures early:

unit tests: ./gradlew build
acceptance tests: ./gradlew acceptanceTest
integration tests: ./gradlew integrationTest
reference tests: ./gradlew ethereum:referenceTests:referenceTests

Signed-off-by: Sally MacFarlane <[email protected]>

siladu

I am not aware of any discussion about the need to have a Besu-specific charter in the first place. Until all maintainers are included in that discussion, and until I understand the benefit, I reject the idea of adding one, regardless of the content.

macfarla · 2025-01-14T21:29:57Z

CHARTER.md

+
+2. **Technical Steering Committee**
+
+   1. The Technical Steering Committee (the “TSC”) will be responsible for all technical oversight of the open source Project. 


If this is intended to be a Besu-specific TSC (as opposed to a LFDT-level body), I think this needs to be clarified

Yes, the TSC is Besu specific. As a default, you can just set the TSC to be the set of all maintainers and, unless I'm missing something, this will basically exactly model your current governance practices.

macfarla · 2025-01-14T21:32:07Z

CHARTER.md

+
+      2. Maintainers are Contributors who have earned the ability to modify (“commit”) source code, documentation or other technical artifacts in a project’s repository; and  
+
+      3. A Contributor may become a Maintainer by a majority approval of the existing Maintainers. A Maintainer may be removed by a majority approval of the other existing Maintainers.


this process is described in more detail already in the MAINTAINERS.md

Yes, and that's exactly as intended.

macfarla · 2025-01-14T21:34:27Z

CHARTER.md

+
+   1. While the Project aims to operate as a consensus-based community, if any TSC decision requires a vote to move the Project forward, the voting members of the TSC will vote on a one vote per voting member basis.
+
+   2. Quorum for TSC meetings requires at least fifty percent of all voting members of the TSC to be present. The TSC may continue to meet if quorum is not met but will be prevented from making any decisions at the meeting.


Besu decision making is generally conducted async

It's totally fine to make decisions async; this provision does not stop you from doing so. Many other projects with these charters also do this.

macfarla · 2025-01-14T21:50:49Z

CHARTER.md

+
+**Technical** **Charter (the “Charter”)**  
+**for**   
+**Besu a Series of LF Projects, LLC**


Is this just boilerplate or is this charter intended to cover multiple repositories?

It covers all of the Besu repositories.

macfarla · 2025-01-14T21:52:04Z

CHARTER.md

+
+      6. establishing community norms, workflows, issuing releases, and security issue reporting policies;
+
+      7. approving and implementing policies and processes for contributing (to be published in the CONTRIBUTING file) and coordinating with the series manager of the Project (as provided for in the Series Agreement, the “Series Manager”) to resolve matters or concerns that may arise as set forth in Section 7 of this Charter;


who is the Series Manager, where is the Series Agreement?

This is a common question on many LF docs!

The series agreement refers to the LF legal incorporation documents, and the series manager is the head of LF legal. What this provision says, in English, is that the project must follow the overall legal rules which bound the LF, and if it does something illegal or something that has the potential to get the LF or maintainers/contributors sued, the LF legal team can step in to get things resolved.

garyschulte · 2025-03-13T00:40:11Z

CHARTER.md

+
+   2. Quorum for TSC meetings requires at least fifty percent of all voting members of the TSC to be present. The TSC may continue to meet if quorum is not met but will be prevented from making any decisions at the meeting.
+
+   3. Except as provided in Section 7.c. and 8.a, decisions by vote at a meeting require a majority vote of those in attendance, provided quorum is met. Decisions made by electronic vote without a meeting require a majority vote of all voting members of the TSC.


where is section 7.c ? is this supposed to be 7.3 ?

Yes, that's correct. I'm not exactly sure what happened with markdown and the numbering system, so sorry about that. The provision just sets a higher bar for charter changes and alternative licensing.

draft charter

386dcdb

Signed-off-by: Sally MacFarlane <[email protected]>

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charter #8114

charter #8114

macfarla commented Jan 13, 2025 •

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macfarla Jan 14, 2025

hartm Feb 18, 2025

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hartm Feb 18, 2025

macfarla Jan 14, 2025

hartm Feb 18, 2025

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macfarla Jan 14, 2025

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garyschulte Mar 13, 2025

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		2. Technical Steering Committee

		1. The Technical Steering Committee (the “TSC”) will be responsible for all technical oversight of the open source Project.


		2. Maintainers are Contributors who have earned the ability to modify (“commit”) source code, documentation or other technical artifacts in a project’s repository; and

		3. A Contributor may become a Maintainer by a majority approval of the existing Maintainers. A Maintainer may be removed by a majority approval of the other existing Maintainers.


		1. While the Project aims to operate as a consensus-based community, if any TSC decision requires a vote to move the Project forward, the voting members of the TSC will vote on a one vote per voting member basis.

		2. Quorum for TSC meetings requires at least fifty percent of all voting members of the TSC to be present. The TSC may continue to meet if quorum is not met but will be prevented from making any decisions at the meeting.


		6. establishing community norms, workflows, issuing releases, and security issue reporting policies;

		7. approving and implementing policies and processes for contributing (to be published in the CONTRIBUTING file) and coordinating with the series manager of the Project (as provided for in the Series Agreement, the “Series Manager”) to resolve matters or concerns that may arise as set forth in Section 7 of this Charter;


		2. Quorum for TSC meetings requires at least fifty percent of all voting members of the TSC to be present. The TSC may continue to meet if quorum is not met but will be prevented from making any decisions at the meeting.

		3. Except as provided in Section 7.c. and 8.a, decisions by vote at a meeting require a majority vote of those in attendance, provided quorum is met. Decisions made by electronic vote without a meeting require a majority vote of all voting members of the TSC.

charter #8114

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charter #8114

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macfarla commented Jan 13, 2025 • edited Loading

PR description

Fixed Issue(s)

Thanks for sending a pull request! Have you done the following?

Locally, you can run these tests to catch failures early:

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macfarla commented Jan 13, 2025 •

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