Define governance

[chadwhitacre]

I've been asked about the governance model for Fair Source. My answer was, "We have multiple launch partners and a public GitHub issue tracker, and we'll evolve from there." Now I've been asked again by a potential adopter, which makes me think that we'll need to evolve sooner rather than later. :)

So I'm opening a thread here to discuss. Obviously Sentry is going to want to keep a hand on the rudder, but I do think it would be healthy to have people from outside of Sentry involved in decision-making for Fair Source. This should be a true community effort. Table stakes should of course be adopting Fair Source for your company (though here prior to launch we're in a bit of a chicken-and-egg).

In my view, @ezekg—you are really the best candidate to form a steering committee together with myself since you've been highly involved from the beginning, going so far as to write your own license to populate the "DOSP + license keys" niche. There are other Sentry folks who have been involved, especially @selviano and @GavinZee. I think we should have one vote/rep/whatever per company. Maybe a standing monthly call is in order? I'm not sure how much business there will be to transact after the initial launch here.

Anyway, I wanted to start the conversation. Thoughts?

[ezekg]

Appreciate it. I'm for it if we think it's something that would help encourage adoption. I like the idea of 1 vote per entity using a Fair Source license because it'll help solidify the fact that Fair Source isn't controlled by a single entity.

I assume the reps will vote on inclusion of new entities, so that it's somewhat controlled.

[chadwhitacre]

inclusion of new entities

I guess really the decision point is adding companies to the company listing, it means reviewing their blog post or link, and digging a little deeper to see that they've adopted a Fair Source licensing approach (which could get futzy if they use something other than one of the five official licenses). I think we could keep it small for the foreseeable future, I don't think we'll get a thundering herd of adoption.

Beyond that I guess it's questions about the values and definition of Fair Source, and whether to formally recognize additional licenses.

[ezekg]

All fine by me. I'm for it. A monthly or quarterly call works too.

[chadwhitacre]

I'm planning to move forward with a simple setup where @ezekg and I are the steering group, and our responsibilities are to:

1. Vet new licenses against the Definition as they are submitted.
2. Vet new company announcements as they are submitted (review license, if BUSL review further).

I intend to add some notes to the README tomorrow after #25 lands.

[chadwhitacre]

I stubbed a readme in #27. Gonna add some notes there ...