Bylaws

This is version 1 of the bylaws. The BookKeeper PMC ratified these bylaws by a 2/3 majority vote on 2014/12/11.

Introduction​

This document defines the bylaws under which the Apache BookKeeper project operates. It defines the roles and responsibilities of the project, who may vote, how voting works, how conflicts are resolved, etc.

BookKeeper is a project of the Apache Software Foundation. The foundation holds the copyright on Apache code including the code in the BookKeeper codebase. The foundation FAQ explains the operation and background of the foundation.

BookKeeper is typical of Apache projects in that it operates under a set of principles, known collectively as the Apache Way. If you are new to Apache development, please refer to the Incubator project for more information on how Apache projects operate.

Roles and responsibilities​

Apache projects define a set of roles with associated rights and responsibilities. These roles govern what tasks an individual may perform within the project. The roles are defined in the following sections.

Users​

The most important participants in the project are people who use our software. The majority of our contributors start out as users and guide their development efforts from the user's perspective.

Users contribute to the Apache projects by providing feedback to contributors in the form of bug reports and feature suggestions. As well, users participate in the Apache community by helping other users on mailing lists and user support forums.

Contributors​

All of the volunteers who are contributing time, code, documentation, or resources to the BookKeeper Project. A contributor that makes sustained , welcome contributions to the project may be invited to become a committer, though the exact timing of such invitations depends on many factors.

Committers​

The project's committers are responsible for the project's technical management. Committers have access to a specified set of subproject's subversion repositories. Committers on subprojects may cast binding votes on any technical discussion regarding that subproject.

Committer access is by invitation only and must be approved by lazy consensus of the active PMC members. A Committer is considered emeritus by his or her own declaration or by not reviewing patches or committing patches to the project for over six months. An emeritus committer may request reinstatement of commit access from the PMC which must be approved by lazy consensus of the active PMC members.

Commit access can be revoked by a unanimous vote of all the active PMC members (except the committer in question if he or she is also a PMC member).

All Apache committers are required to have a signed Contributor License Agreement on file with the Apache Software Foundation. There is a Committer FAQ which provides more details on the requirements for committers.

A committer who makes a sustained contribution to the project may be invited to become a member of the PMC. The form of contribution is not limited to code. It can also include code review, helping out users on the mailing lists, documentation, etc.

Project Management Committee​

The PMC is responsible to the board and the ASF for the management and oversight of the Apache BookKeeper codebase. The responsibilities of the PMC include:

• Deciding what is distributed as products of the Apache BookKeeper project. In particular all releases must be approved by the PMC.
• Maintaining the project's shared resources, including the codebase repository, mailing lists, websites.
• Speaking on behalf of the project.
• Resolving license disputes regarding products of the project.
• Nominating new PMC members and committers.
• Maintaining these bylaws and other guidelines of the project.
• Membership of the PMC is by invitation only and must be approved by a lazy consensus of active PMC members. A PMC member is considered emeritus by his or her own declaration or by not contributing in any form to the project for over six months. An emeritus member may request reinstatement to the PMC, which must be approved by a lazy consensus of active PMC members.
• Membership of the PMC can be revoked by an unanimous vote of all the active PMC members other than the member in question.

The chair of the PMC is appointed by the ASF board. The chair is an office holder of the Apache Software Foundation (Vice President, Apache BookKeeper) and has primary responsibility to the board for the management of the projects within the scope of the BookKeeper PMC. The chair reports to the board quarterly on developments within the BookKeeper project.

When the current chair of the PMC resigns, the PMC votes to recommend a new chair using lazy consensus, but the decision must be ratified by the Apache board.

Decision making​

Within the BookKeeper project, different types of decisions require different forms of approval. For example, the previous section describes several decisions which require 'lazy consensus' approval. This section defines how voting is performed, the types of approvals, and which types of decision require which type of approval.

Voting​

Decisions regarding the project are made by votes on the primary project development mailing list dev@bookkeeper.apache.org. Where necessary, PMC voting may take place on the private BookKeeper PMC mailing list private@bookkeeper.apache.org. Votes are clearly indicated by subject line starting with [VOTE]. Votes may contain multiple items for approval and these should be clearly separated. Voting is carried out by replying to the vote mail. Voting may take four flavors.

All participants in the BookKeeper project are encouraged to show their agreement with or against a particular action by voting. For technical decisions, only the votes of active committers are binding. Non binding votes are still useful for those with binding votes to understand the perception of an action in the wider BookKeeper community. For PMC decisions, only the votes of PMC members are binding.

Voting can also be applied to changes already made to the BookKeeper codebase. These typically take the form of a veto (-1) in reply to the commit message sent when the commit is made. Note that this should be a rare occurrence. All efforts should be made to discuss issues when they are still patches before the code is committed.

Approvals​

There are the types of approvals that can be sought. Different actions require different types of approvals.

Vetoes​

A valid, binding veto cannot be overruled. If a veto is cast, it must be accompanied by a valid reason explaining the reasons for the veto. The validity of a veto, if challenged, can be confirmed by anyone who has a binding vote. This does not necessarily signify agreement with the veto - merely that the veto is valid.

If you disagree with a valid veto, you must lobby the person casting the veto to withdraw his or her veto. If a veto is not withdrawn, the action that has been vetoed must be reversed in a timely manner.

Actions​

This section describes the various actions which are undertaken within the project, the corresponding approval required for that action and those who have binding votes over the action. It also specifies the minimum length of time that a vote must remain open, measured in business days. In general votes should not be called at times when it is known that interested members of the project will be unavailable.