Announcing the 'FreeBSD Community Process'

[Rui Paulo]

On Jun 13, 2017, at 23:53, FreeBSD Core Secretary <core-secretary at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> Core has just presented their ideas for a new 'FreeBSD Community
> Process' at BSDCan.  This will provide a more formalized mechanism for
> proposing and deciding on important or contentious changes within the
> Project.  The idea is to avoid discussions degenerating into an
> interminable argument on the mailing lists with ultimately no action
> being taken.
> 
> The FCP process is modelled on similar ideas in other projects,
> particularly the Python Enhancement Process
> (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001/), the Joyent RFD Process
> (https://github.com/joyent/rfd/blob/master/README.md), and even the
> venerable IETF RFC Process
> (https://www.ietf.org/about/standards-process.html)
> 
> In summary, anyone wanting to make a change that will result in a
> non-trivial effect on the FreeBSD User Base, (or retrospectively anyone
> having backed out a change after running into contention over something
> that turned out less trivial than they anticipated), should write down
> what they propose to change, describing what problem they are trying to
> solve, how they propose to solve it and what consequential impact this
> will have.  Contact the fcp-editors@ mailing list for assistance in
> getting your proposal into releasable state. The document is then added
> to the FCP index, committed into the FCP repository and published for
> discussion.  Each FCP proposal is a living document and will be updated
> to reflect any conclusions resulting during the discussion.
> 
> Once consensus has been achieved, or the discussion has gone on for
> enough time, Core will vote on accepting the FCP.  Core will be voting
> according to the mood of the discussion around the proposal.
> 
> The current state of fcp-0000.md -- the document that defines the FCP
> process -- can be viewed at
> 
> https://github.com/freebsd/fcp/blob/master/fcp-0000.md
> 
> This is a working document and subject to change.  We will be applying
> the FCP process as far as possible to fcp-0000 itself: this message
> counts as the formal announcement on the fcp at FreeBSD.org mailing list
> placing fcp-0000 into 'feedback' status.  Your contributions are
> welcome, by email to the fcp at FreeBSD.org mailing list, or by submitting
> issues or pull requests, or by annotating the fcp-0000.md document text
> through GitHub.
> 
> For help with generating a new FCP document and discussion around the
> FCP process please join the fcp-editors at FreeBSD.org mailing list.

I think the FCP idea is good, but I don’t like the fact that only core@ can vote.  Core has been an entity that doesn’t get to decide much on the direction of the project and I was under the impression that most people were okay with this because the developers were the ones deciding the direction of the project.  Why can’t committers vote?

—
Rui Paulo