Review webpack's new governance model -- Impact project.

[ovflowd]

Hey folks 👋 as discussed in a few prior CPC meetings, webpack was at risk of being downplayed from Impact to At Large due to a missing governance model and insufficient maintainers.

After the meeting, I synced with @rginn and joined webpack as one of the maintainers. We immediately started working on rewriting webpack's governance mode, to be more in line with current standards of other Impact projects, and we installed a TSC (Technical Steering Committee) for webpack; Which will have at the moment more than five members (We are assessing who wants to join the TSC and whatnot)

We reached an internal consensus that the governance model is almost ready for review by the Foundation's CPC and the Board since it has undergone a massive change.

The governance model can be viewed at https://github.com/webpack/webpack-governance; at the moment, initial feedback from the CPC is just being gathered, which can be found here.

Once we believe we are ready for a final review, a Pull Request will be made against https://github.com/webpack/webpack, updating the GOVERNANCE.md file and README.md file to reflect the new Governance Model and webpack TSC.

Hence, the ask is for the CPC to start analyzing, viewing, and reviewing (by adding comments here) the initial draft and raise awareness of the incoming governance model change, pending approval by the CPC and the Board.

[bensternthal]

@ovflowd My understanding is that the board does not review or approve a project's technical charter and that this is solely under the CPC. If you found something that states otherwise please let me know.

[ovflowd]

@ovflowd My understanding is that the board does not review or approve a project's technical charter and that this is solely under the CPC. If you found something that states otherwise please let me know.

Oh good to know! Nope, I just assumed 🙇

[tobie]

As expressed in Slack, I'm a little bit confused as to what the request is here. Is this a request for input on the governance project at large? Is it a request to formally approve webpack's new charter?

If it's the former, I've expressed my concerns in slack about the complexity of the governance compared to the size of the project and would strongly advise simplifying it greatly and avoiding duplication of information across documents and repositories. But this is absolutely not mandatory; projects have a lot of leeway when it comes to establishing their internal governance, they just have to abide by the general principles of the foundation and have a charter that is formally approved an reviewed by the CPC.

If it's the latter, the CPC will want to review webpack's charter, not governance.md or a README. (I'd recommend basing the charter on the template charter available in the CPC's repo as it's going to lighten the review burden on the CPC significantly.)

@ovflowd would you mind clarifying what the intent of this issue and of the related PR (webpack/webpack#18804) you linked in slack? I think this would be super helpful. Thanks!

[ovflowd]

As expressed in Slack, I'm a little bit confused as to what the request is here. Is this a request for input on the governance project at large? Is it a request to formally approve webpack's new charter?

The latter, but feedback on the governance doc would also be nice.

If it's the latter, the CPC will want to review webpack's charter, not governance.md or a README. (I'd recommend basing the charter on the template charter available in the CPC's repo as it's going to lighten the review burden on the CPC significantly.)

Yes, we followed this document, which ironically uses the Node.js TSC charter as an example. Hence, we based our TSC charter on Node.js's one, and we simplified and adapted it based on our needs.

@ovflowd would you mind clarifying what the intent of this issue and of the related PR (webpack/webpack#18804) you linked in slack? I think this would be super helpful. Thanks!

We are formally requesting for the CPC to vote on approval of the new TSC charter for webpack. We are also requesting optional feedback on the new governance model and its wording.

[voxpelli]

as discussed in a few prior CPC meetings, webpack was at risk of being downplayed from Impact to At Large due to a missing governance model and insufficient maintainers

My interpretation is that @ovflowd is requesting a review of whether this new governance model would remove/reduce the risk of webpack being downplayed from Impact to At Large – because else the work that @ovflowd and others has done has not been successful (and then hopefully there are some feedback on how it could be tweaked for it to become successful in achieving its goals)

@ovflowd Am I correct?

[ovflowd]

@ovflowd Am I correct?

Yes! This is what originally motivated us for doing such work. In the end we realised the webpack project (somehow (?)) does not have a concrete/real charter at the moment (I wonder how they became part of OpenJS without that, or maybe there was at some point, or it is legacy enough)

But at least the current maintainers concur that there is no real governing model for the whole webpack org. Hence, we drafted a real charter to create webpack's TSC and a governing model document to reflect on current practices and future ones.

[tobie]

We are formally requesting for the CPC to vote on approval of the new TSC charter for webpack. We are also requesting optional feedback on the new governance model and its wording.

Thanks for clarifying. Can you please link to the charter and be explicit that this is a formal charter approval request.

[ovflowd]

We are formally requesting for the CPC to vote on approval of the new TSC charter for webpack. We are also requesting optional feedback on the new governance model and its wording.

Thanks for clarifying. Can you please link to the charter and be explicit that this is a formal charter approval request.

Definitely! The actual chart file was created here: https://github.com/webpack/webpack-governance/blob/main/TSC_CHARTER.md

In this PR, we can address any change to the CHARTER and the rest of the governance repository: https://github.com/webpack/webpack-governance/pull/6

But ultimately, this webpack/webpack#18804 is the PR that requires 👍 from the CPC for us to proceed with the adoption of the charter.

Right now, that webpack/webpack-governance repository holds no power as it is not referred anywhere.

[tobie]

But ultimately, this webpack/webpack#18804 is the PR that requires 👍 from the CPC for us to proceed with the adoption of the charter.

That's incorrect. As explained previously, the CPC will approve the charter, not this PR.

[ovflowd]

But ultimately, this webpack/webpack#18804 is the PR that requires 👍 from the CPC for us to proceed with the adoption of the charter.

That's incorrect. As explained previously, the CPC will approve the charter, not this PR.

I thought that charter changes the CPC goes to the PR to approve said charter changes. I saw that happening elsewhere, like with the JSON schema org, is that not the case anymore? -- if that was never the case, then it was a misunderstanding from my side.

[tobie]

webpack/webpack#18804 updates the README and governance.md. The CPC approves a charter (see Art. 5(7)).

[ovflowd]

webpack/webpack#18804 updates the README and governance.md. The CPC approves a charter (see Art. 5(7)).

Gotcha, would the other PR I mentioned above that is directly towards the webpack/webpack-governance repository then count as the proper place?

Or would no interactions in any PR be needed? Just here between ourselves? I know Im not a voting member so Im not part of the people that vote.

[tobie]

Ideally, the way this works is you have a PR containing only the charter changes and that's what gets reviewed. Not sure how to manage this here now that the charter is already in a repo.

[ovflowd]

Ideally, the way this works is you have a PR containing only the charter changes and that's what gets reviewed. Not sure how to manage this here now that the charter is already in a repo.

Noted, how else would it be reviewed if not in a repo? 🤔 like the changes be in a fork and then only added to this new repo after reviewed?

@evenstensberg do you believe we can rollback the changes to the main webpack/webpack-governance repo based from your fork then?

[tobie]

how else would it be reviewed if not in a repo?

As a PR!

[tobie]

Concretely, what you could do is just create a PR that moves it so CHARTER.md.

Technically, our charters are project charters and not TSC charters, so CHARTER.md is a good place for it, actually.

[ovflowd]

how else would it be reviewed if not in a repo?

As a PR!

Sorry, my wording here was poor, I meant any PR needs to be against a repository; So I was asking if not as a PR, then what should it be.

Anyhow! Then is it correct that the PR should be from the fork -> org repo?

[tobie]

The PR needs to be against the final destination of the charter, wherever that'll be.

[ovflowd]

I see, appreciate your guidance here. Ill sync with the team :)

[tobie]

Sounds great. I don't like making you do more work here, but I do want to point out that you're going to get a lot of change requests the way the current charter is framed. I think you'd avoid yourself a lot of frustration if you reformatted it to meet the structure of the template charter I listed earlier. While we're not asking existing projects to update their charters, expectation is that new ones (or in this case, projects which don't have a charter yet) use the provided template as it makes everyone's life a lot easier (see reference to the charter template in the onboarding checklist).

[ovflowd]

Sounds great. I don't like making you do more work here, but I do want to point out that you're going to get a lot of change requests the way the current charter is framed. I think you'd avoid yourself a lot of frustration if you reformatted it to meet the structure of the template charter I listed earlier. While we're not asking existing projects to update their charters, expectation is that new ones (or in this case, projects which don't have a charter yet) use the provided template as it makes everyone's life a lot easier (see reference to the charter template in the onboarding checklist).

I genuinely thought we followed the template -- but Ill check with the team, as this requires even more work here... This would have been useful all the way back 😅

[ovflowd]

Alrighty, the updates on the charter file actually look more trivial than I thought; That's definitely doable work 🙌

[tobie]

Notes from today's CPC call:

• Tobie gave input on how to structure charter/governance based off of templates; Claudio and team will come back with updates

[ovflowd]

CTAs:

• Sync with @evenstensberg on Wednesday for updating the charter proposal
• Reset the governance repository that should not have the charter merged yet
• Open a PR towards the governance repository only containing the charter
• Request the CPC to review the charter
• Other changes and documents to do in follow-up PRs
  • For example, FUNDING documentation, verify first with WebdriverIO and Mocha as they also have more up to date templates.

[tobie]

Notes from today's CPC call:

See @ovflowd's notes above.

[ovflowd]

Hey @openjs-foundation/cpc the CHARTER is ready to be reviewed: webpack/governance#1